The 175th Hunger Games: Seven Days
by peace and joyce
Summary: Time stops for no tribute. Let the 175th Hunger Games begin. Seven Days. *closed*
1. Chapter 1

"And now we honour our **seventh Quarter Quell**.

On the one hundred and seventy fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the districts that during the past Rebellions **choices of life and death** were often made on the spur of the moment, the Hunger Games of that year will last for no more than **seven days**. If, by midnight on the seventh day, **no victor has been decided**, then the arena will be destroyed with nuclear weaponry and **all surviving tributes** will be annihilated; **regardless** of gender, number, district- or age."

**FIGHT TO THE DEATH**

**RACE TO THE FINISH**

**THE SEVEN QUARTER QUELL HAS BEGUN!**


	2. Chapter 2

"So, another momentous occasion! The Quarter Quell! And let me tell you, the Capitol is excited to see what you have planned!"

"Yeah, we really wanted this year to make the arena reflect the theme."

"Exciting! So did you draw inspiration from previous Games?"

"Definitely, we drew a lot of inspiration from the Third Quarter Quell- with our own alterations, of course. And since it is the hundredth anniversary of the Third Quarter Quell and the Mockingjay Rebellion, we had to weave that in somehow."

"Do the Tributes have anything they should watch out for?"

"I would be confident in saying that after the Third Quarter Quell, this year's Games are perhaps one of the most challenging: there will be no second chances for the Tributes you know, very little letting go. It's a case of what we call: "You Kill, Or We Will."

"And any hints for our viewers?"

"Yes. This is our tagline:"

"In the Third Quarter Quell, it started at midnight. In the Seventh Quarter Quell, **it ends at midnight.**"


	3. Chapter 3

District One

**Velvet**

Her silver eyes glistened in the reflection off her looking glass. Deep, troubled eyes- with a sort of melancholy gentleness to them. Somewhere behind those eyes, old strife resurfaced and her face broke into a grimace of pain. She paused, her hairbrush poised in mind air, strands of reddish gold entwined around the fibres. Then she threw the brush like a knife at the mirror and watched her face fracture and shatter into hundreds of tiny pieces. Bitter, she stood up and away from her chipped dressing table, knocking over the matching stool in the process.

One word stuck out in her memory.

_Bastard._

Many thoughts arose at the word. Images of pain and humiliation. Mocking schoolchildren, estranged relatives, jeering and cruel in their libel and their distance.

_"Do you love your mother, children? Do you love and honour the shame she has brought upon all of our heads? Do you thank her for bringing you bastards into the world or do you curse her for the sl** she is? Tell her children. Tell her you love her."_

She remembered their frozen faces, like the stone that their family was named for. She remembered the brilliant scarlet that marked where their mother's ears had been. The blood matting the red hair, so like Velvet's own.

Clos, her twin brother, had been the first to deliver a verbal blow.

_"We reject you."_

And the damning words that she herself had said.

_"I do not love you."_

_"Good children."_ Her grandfather patted them both on the shoulder. His pride of them then had been the closest he had ever come to expressing affection for them.

_"Now children, let's see what happens when the family name is disgraced._"

It was as if she was a chicken, the way their grandfather had throttled the neck of their mother. Horrible gurgling choking screams, tears spilling from the eyes that rolled back in their mother's head.

"I don't hate Mom" Velvet whispered to the glassy shards. "I pity her. It's granddad. I don't care how old and wise he is, he's no better than the clothes he stands in. I hate him for the way he treats me. The way his obsessive training has turned Clos into a hateful brute. I don't hate Dad either, but if the spineless coward died tomorrow, I certainly wouldn't cry."

She turned from the wreckage, the morning light glancing off her hair, making it blaze like fire. She could not look back. She could only look forward.

**Calion**

"Aw yeah!"

Having completed the assualt course in record time, Calion turned and slammed his partner/minion/best friend Aldarion a high five. The two had been training since they could walk and the "Al-and-don't-call-him-Cal" duo were becoming the most important of District teenagers: Careers.

"Dude, how could you not win the Hunger Games?"

Calion snorted. "Al, Games are for amateurs. I'm volunteering to win the Quarter Quell. The new President says that for every Quarter Quell from now onwards, the Victor's gonna get twice the lolly a normal Victor would. And I'm gonna be the first to have the honour."

"Hell yeah!"

"Too bad the Games only last a week this year."

"Don't worry. Once everybody sees that you're going to win, they'll soon get bored."

"No they won't. These Games will be a piece of cake for me, but I'll make sure it's exciting. Thrill of the chase, eh?"

"Honour or not, I feel sorry for the poor girl who is Reaped as _your_ District partner."

"Or who is stupid enough to volunteer."

"Didn't you hear? Hardly anyone wants to volunteer this year, for the girl's place, especially after they heard you were volunteering. And it's the last year for some of them. I guess the Quell premise has thrown 'em off."

"It hasn't put me off. I'm going to volunteer and I'm going to win. I am this District's worthiest representative and no pampered bitch is going to even dream of being on _my_ level. I will kill anyone in my way."

"Hell yeah!"

Reaping

"Velvet Marble!"

Her heart lept. Finally, a bit of luck! She would break free of her grandfather's stifling "love" and be free at last, rich, an outcast no longer. And apparently the houses in the Victor Village were even bigger and nicer than the Mayor's house!

All she had to do was get to the stage first. With a squeal of excitement, she raced for the stage, shooting her livid grandfather, the Mayor, a smug look.

But halfway, the lack of footsteps made her turn around. No pursuers, no catfights. The Square was silent. Underneath her excitement, suspicion began to sneak up on her. Why was nobody volunteering? All the girls from the Academy stood poker straight, faces deadpan or glaring. Even the eighteen year olds did not budge.

No matter. Victory was hers, nobody had any right to take it from her.

She stood on the stage, flicking back her hair confidently.

"Now for the boys! Algernon Andunie!"

Algernon did not even move a muscle. He didn't have to. There were six simultaneous cries of "I volunteer!" from the eighteen year old section. They all raced for the stage. Calion was second fastest until he kicked the back of the legs of the boy in front. The boy showed no signs of pain (pain=weakness) and attempted to punch Calion. Calion caught his arm and twisted it behind his back, wrapping him in a headlock and, on impulse, snapping his neck.

Velvet's flying heart crash landed.

"Oops," said Calion without an ounce of regret in his voice. He dropped the boy in the dust and swaggered to the stage. No, not swaggered. SWAGGERED.

It's OK Velvet thought. I trained just as much as he did, I could take him on. And trust him to underestimate me. He doesn't know how hard grandfather made us work.

But this was Calion Pharazon, the jewel of the Academy's Crown. So damn TOUGH he beat Jean Sands, the latest One Victor, in an arm wrestle. That was when she broke his nose.

No, the odds were not in her favour.

But when had they ever been?

"District One, I present you with your Tributes: Velvet Marble and Calion Pharazon!"

* * *

District Two

**Female**

_"Garcia, I want you to listen to me very carefully. The authorities of District 13... let's just say they aren't very happy with us. And if we are ever going to evade the gas chambers, we have to get out and get out now. Pack whatever you can fit in your schoolbag, and don't panic."_

_"What about abuela?"_

_"She'll be fine here. Now get your stuff."_

_"Where are we going?"_

_"We're seeking refuge in Panem. I've tried to get us to the Capitol but they won't allow it. We'll take the next best thing and head for District 2. If anyone in the future asks, just say you are from... from another district. Never tell the truth about 13."_

_"Mi hija, I do not advise it," said Garcia's grandmother. "Isabellla, les gusta comer las almas de los ninos."_

_"Eh, Madre, tu estas loco!"_

Garcia screamed herself awake. She rocked herself, clutching at strands of her long black hair. She pulled out from under her pillow a photo of her beloved grandmother and used it, as she always had, to wipe her eyes. The Spanish words of the old woman echoed in her head.

_Les gusta comer las almas de los ninos. _They like to eat the souls of children.

**Male**

"Come _on,_ Bif, harder, stronger, faster!"

Bif grunted at his father.

"Dontcha take that tone with me! You think I won the Games by sitting on my ass eating pizza? You think your mom won it by getting up late and bunking off PE? No. You want this victory, son, you gotta work for it."

"I know, you said."

"But everything I say to you goes in one ear and out the other."

Bif shrugged and then moaned as his three little sisters, who seemed to be on a permanent sugar high, came skipping into the room. Great. Deep down under all the anger and muscles, he guessed he did sort of love his family, but angry Careers don't show love. (Except with hot ladies/men)

"Bify!"

His girlfriend, Lily ran up to give him a hug. She stroked the long scar on his face fondly.

"You ready for the Reaping?"

"Can't wait."

Reaping

The taste of paella in her mouth was a comfort to Garcia as she was ushered into the 14 year old's pen. It was pleasant, in this strange and brutal country, to have remnants of her culture. She could still hear the drunken shouts of her stepfather ringing in her ears. Thank goodness she had an excuse to avoid him today.

The propaganda film rolled, along with a clip of the Reading of the Quarter Quell. Garcia shuddered and, Career though she was, prayed not to be Reaped.

"Ladies first! Garcia Franchez!"

_Les gusta comer las almas de los ninos. _She obeyed her first instinct: to run.

She looked over the square, to the plains in the distance. The plains of home. Maybe if she was fast enough, she could get there. get home.

Arms grabbed her and anger replaced fear. In her desperation, she scratched at the emotionless Peacekeepers restraining her. One tried to pin her arms behind her back but she bit his wrist.

"Will Garcia Franchez please come to the stage!"

Finally, she was dragged to the stage by the hair. The Escort looked at her in disapproval and muttered something along the lines of "such bad manners!" before tottering over to the bowl containing the boy's names.

"Oi! I volunteer!" Garcia raised her eyebrows. Well well. Bif Insy. She recgnised him, he lived in the house next to her's in the Victor's Village. They had never really spoken, but he must have heard her stepfather shouting. They scowled at each other. Although Garcia was much smaller and younger, her bold Spanish face was equally ferocious. Their handshake turned into an arm wrestle.

"District Two, I present you with your Tributes: Garcia Franchez and Bif Insy!"

* * *

**1) Velvet Marble**

**2) Calion Pharazon**

**3) Garcia Franchez**

**4) Bif Insy**


	4. Chapter 4

**I've found a piece on youtube that I think fits really well as a sort of theme for this year's Games. It's called War Room/Battle and it's composed by Thomas Newman. **

District Three

**Shayen**

Specs removed her large spectacles and polished them on her blouse, squinting slightly in the bright light. Two large boys pushed past her, on their way to the Reaping.

"Oi, Specs!"

"Speccy!"

"Calculating your odds of winning, eh Speccy?"

"Nerds got to be Reaped too, y'know!"

Shayen mumbled something incoherently and shuffled off. She could never feel sociable, especially on Reaping Days. Reaping Days were the worst, she could barely say hello.

A pair of arms wrapped around her and she jumped, but a familiar voice whispered: "Hey, Specs."

"Swid!" Shayen beamed and turned to greet her "accidental" best friend of five years: Leigh Swiderski. Leigh was the only person Shayen felt truly comfortable around, even if Leigh had never known what it was like to be bullied- or these days, it was more a mild pestering that Shayen suffered.

"Hey, can you help me with my Computer Science project? My partner is really being a pain."

"Sure. Anything for a friend. After the Reaping, yes?"

"Great. Shayen-"

"My goodness is that the time? We must be getting along, the Reaping starts soon!"

"Whatever, Shayen I-"

"What is it?"

"Um, nothing."

**Morgan**

"Classified Capitol Information. Access Denied."

"S***!" Morgan typed codes frantically into the computer. Trust his luck to get caught hacking on Reaping Day! Thank goodness this computer wasn't registered. Home-made computers never were.

He shut down the system, tweaking the photograph by the modem affectionately. "Love you, Dad."

He had to look after this computer. His Dad had built it, long before he was born. He wished he had known his Dad, James. Morgan's birthdays were bittersweet, as that was the day he was born and his dad died. An Eltek for an Eltek. That was why his mother always called him James.

"Morgan..."

He turned to see his older sister, Mary-Ann, smiling at him mischievously. "Trying to get yourself out of the Reaping again, are you?"

"No." The lie came so easily it almost replaced the truth. Thank goodness his large blue eyes could easily look innocent.

"Good. You may be a prodigy when it comes to the computers, but the Capitol systems are unbreakable. I'm afraid that is just one puzzle you won't be able to solve."

"Shall we go?" Morgan hastily changed the subject, putting on his hat over his short black curls. "I have firewalls to breach once the Reaping is over. Trojan Horses don't drive themselves, you know."

His older sister laughed, making horse noises. Mary-Ann was a good sport and he supposed that it was because of her that he always got on well with older girls. Hardly anyone could guess that he was only 13.

Reaping

Shayen kept her feelings of disgust to herself as the propaganda film came to a close. She would do what was requried of her by the Capitol and that would be it. She would watch the Games but not enjoy them. That should be enough, she felt.

Morgan scowled throughout the entire film. Barbarian nonsense, opiate for the masses. It was on a day like today that he wished the Games never existed. He hated watching the film in particular. There was no useful survival information he could glean from it, which was the comfort of watching the real Games. Besides, for the Capitol it was always brain over brawn. The tributes showing off in the film were always noble, fearless and muscular. Where were the strategists, the inventors and the backstabbers? Nowhere to be seen. Sometimes Morgan wandered if the Capitol people actually knew what a brain was.

"Ladies first!"

Morgan's attention snapped back to the Reaping.

"Shayen Romach!"

From the fifteen year old girls' section, Shayen was confused. Hardly anyone called her Shayen.

"It's Specs!" she called out indignantly.

Then the truth sank in. As she stepped out of her pen, the fear on her face was evident. She tried to hide it, tried to look composed but she couldn't do it. She was quivering as she mounted the stage, the sweat on her nose causing her glasses to slowly slide down it.

Morgan was just admiring the girl's beautiful long ginger curls when-

"Morgan James Eltek!"

He was stunned. _Think, Morgan, think!_ he scanned his brain for a plan. This was the beginning. He must plan carefully, to have a set goal throughout the day. What should I be? Unbothered? Afraid?

He certainly couldn't show off. He looked underfed and being only 4'6" didn't help him either. Strategy? Weakling.

It was so easy. But the closer he got to the stage, the more afraid he was. He knew he was paler than ever, paler than the girl on stage. But he refused to let his fear completely cloud his thoughts.

_You could die within a week of the Games beginning. You WILL die, Morgan and admiring that girl's lovely hair won't stop you having to watch her die either. _

_Shut it, subconscious. _

"Shake hands, tributes."

Morgan looked at Shayen. She had nice eyes too, he noticed. Very pale green- so pale you probably wouldn't notice them if her massive glasses didn't magnify her eyes so much.

"District Three, I present you with your Tributes: Shayen Romach and Morgan Eltek!"

District Four

**Female**

Charlotte sliced through the water effortlessly, shaking her dusty brown dreadlocks out of her eyes, which were the same colour as the water. Happy to be back in the ocean, she took a breath and did a somersault underwater, giddy with delight as the world spun around. She resurfaced and lunged at her twin brothers, splashing wildly. They laughed and splashed back.

"Kids!" Mrs Stillwater called across the beach. "Get ready for the Reaping!"

"Coming Mom!" They began to wade out, Charlotte with her arms around both of her brothers' shoulders.

"Got to get ready, eh Charlie?"

"Yeah, got to look beautiful for the Reaping!"

"Don't I always?" She pretended to look offended.

"Well I certainly do!" The elder of the twins flexed his arms.

"Pfft nothing." His twin swished his hair back and pulled a heroic face. "What d'you think, Charlie?"

She paused. "I think..." then she shook her head like a dog, sending water everywhere.

**Male**

"Careful with that, Nep." Damian rearranged his little brother's fingers around the fishing rod. "See?"

"It's so hard!" Nep moaned. "Can't you stay longer and help me?"

"Sorry Nep, got the Reaping." His brother pouted. "That sucks."

Damian shrugged. "Life's like that sometimes. Too bad, eh?"

"I guess." Nep went from indignant to sad. "D'you think Dad will be drinking again today?"

"Probably. Today ends with y, so yes." Damian was brooding.

Reaping

"Annabeth Havoiles!"

In the fourteen year olds' pen, Charlotte was struck with an idea. So many in her District were wary of the Reaping for this year, the Quarter Quell deterring many otherwise volunteers. If it was like that it may be like that in other Districts. Without any volunteers, the Careers could be younger or less trained. And that meant that she, Charlie Stillwater with her swimming skills and archery, had a decent chance. And it was a Quarter Quell too- she would never have this kind of oppurtunity again.

"I volunteer!" she called out, but the moment she said it she regretted it. Maybe it wasn't a good idea: she was still young and the chance of dying was still there.

But there was nothing she could do now except paste a delighted smile on her face and run up excitedly to the stage. "Charlotte Stillwater".

"Damian Helmac!"

Well lookit that, thought Damien. That's a bit of bad luck. Shrugging his brooding shoulders he wandered up to the stage, deliberately unbothered. It would be easier for Nep that way.

Charlotte gave him a friendly smile, which he did not return. He shook hands with her polite enough before returning to his cynical brooding. (Did I mention that he does that a lot?)

"District Four, I present you with your Tributes: Charlotte Stillwater and Damian Helmac!"

**5) Shayen Romach**

**6) Morgan Eltek**

**7) Charlotte Stillwater**

**8) Damian Helmac**

**I don't think I did these tributes justice, hopefully I will develop them satisfactorily later on.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Sharp-eyed readers may have noticed that Velvet Marble and Aden Hanran sound rather familiar. They also appear in nb1998's SYOT 77th Hunger Games: Remember the Past.**

**Conclusion: They are time travellers. **

District Five

**Female**

"Good morning world!"

With a broad and friendly smile, Iresse Nolofinwean hopped out of bed. She skipped through life merrily, isn't life a bed of Snow-free roses really, dispensing quarters to the poor like a character out of a Disney movie, cartoon birds flapping along behind her just to emphasise how lovely, happy smiley and optimistic Iresse Nolofinwean was.

Author. What are you doing. Author. STAHP.

**Female (Take Two)**

Iresse Nolofinwean woke up and got out of bed in a matter not dissimilar to a zombie rising from the grave, only slightly less cheerful. Her morning hair could easily be equated with a Hunger Games muttation.

"I hate you world," she grumbled, scowling. (She's not a morning person.)

Groggily, she took a shower (I hate you shower) got dressed (I hate you clothes) and brushed her hair (I... don't like you hairbrush.) She pulled on her left boot, but when she couldn't untie the knots on the right she threw it out of the window.

Unfortunately she didn't open the window first.

Ignoring the commotion and whining car alarms caused by a certain someone's aerodynamic boot, she slouched into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of Earl Grey tea (none of this PG Tips nonsense for _her_) while proofreading her blueprints for World Destruction.

Girl's got to have a hobby.

**Male**

Xavier ran his finger along the scar that stretched from one rugby player ear to the other. That had been too close for comfort. He prayed that nobody would ever try to slit his throat again.

He looked at himself in the mirror. Bruised and battered from previous fights. Buzzcut. typical thug look.

_Who am I? What could I be? I could be anything. But what do I want to be?_

"I don't know," he said out loud. _I'm not a person of many words. I can't wax lyrical about anything. It's hard to describe myself. Not many people really get me and I'm one of them. I don't wanna be a bad guy, but how else can I stop people doing bad stuff to me? I can't talk to them. A punch is my only real way of comunicating. I don't wanna hurt people, 'cause that makes me bad, but how else can I stop them hurting me?_

Oh well, he thought. I shall just have to wait and see.

Reaping

"Iresse Nolofinwean!"

"Oh, great!" Iresse pushed her way out of the pen and into the path that led to the stage. "Whoopee! Surprise!" she said sarcastically, wiggling her hands. "Gawd, don't like drop dead of happiness or anything. Oh wait. I'll be the one dropping dead. 'Cause I'm going to f****** Hunger Games. Hahaha."

She slouched angrily up to the stage, kicking stones in her path. Once she stomped to the top of the stage she scowled out at the District, her hands on her hips. She shrugged.

"May as well get this out of the way." She turned to the Mayor and gave him the middle finger. "F*** you Mayor." She gave the Head Peacekeeper her other middle finger. "F*** you random Peacekeeper. And most of all-"

She turned to the crowds and gave them both of her middle fingers.

"F*** you District."

"Manners!" The Escort was virtually catatonic with horror. "Iresse Nolofinwean! There are children in the square!"

"No! Really? And there was me thinking they were little pink elephants-"

"Now for the boys!" Her Escort hastily interrupted, virtually sprinting over to the boys' reaping bowl.

"Xavier Holendo!"

Out in the crowds, Xavier felt himself bubble with panic. In front of him was a boy he knew to be a cheat, who signed up kids' tessera for them if they couldn't leave the house, only to take the food for himself. Kids had been Reaped thanks to him.

Just call him Xavier Karma Holendo.

He snatched the boy's shoulder.

"Pretend to be me."

"Do it, or you don't wanna know what's gonna happen to you."

The boy, trembling, walked out.

"Hey, that's not Xavier!"

"That kid ain't Xavier!"

"There he is. Get him!"

The District was uproar- except for Iresse, who was too busy sulking.

Xavier raced in an attempt to get out of the Square but Peacekeepers grabbed him by the shoulders, pushing him towards the stage. Still he fought, punching and kicking. Finally, a crew of eight Peacekeepers managed to subdue him enough to get him to the Justice Building.

"District Five, I present you with your Tributes: Iresse Nolofinwean and Xavier Holendo!"

"Shake hands? OK then, don't."

District Six

**Female**

The Reaping Inspector rapped smartly on the door. Several flakes of paint fluttered off. A bedraggled man answered, hastily stuffing a suspicious parcel into his pocket.

"Mr Brooks, I presume."

"Yeah, that's me."

"I'm here about your daughter: Alwilda Iphigeneia Timo Brooks?"

"Daisy? What about Daisy?"

"The _Reaping, _Mr Brooks. Remember? I come every Reaping Day to ensure your daughter is still living and is ready in case she is Reaped? She may be classified insane, but she is not exempt from Reaping."

"Oh right. I remember now. Come this way."

He led her up a set of dark, creaking steps. Halfway up, the Inspector heard a long pitiful wail come from inside one of the bedrooms.

"Oh good, I understand your daughter is awake. Kindly lead me to her."

"Daisy?" The man's voice was gentle, but with a hint of fear to it. "A nice lady is here to see you."

The room was dingy. There were scratch marks on the wall and the wallpaper was peeling off. The dust hung like a shroud around the rocking figure of what was once a girl. Her hair was greyish with dust, but a burnt brown underneath it. She drew her filthy dressing gown closer around her, filthy with dust and food and what could only be blood.

She looked up, her eyes the same grey as her clothes. In her fingers she twirled a pale, pure white flower- a daisy.

"Smile for the nice lady and you shall have a sweetie," He drew the parcel from his pocket.

"Mr Brooks!" the Inspector was scandalised. "That is an illegal substance!"

"Sorry miss." The girl's father retreated. However, the Inspector found herself fascinated by this strange creature. What was that around the girl's mouth-

"Not so close miss!" But it was too late. The inmate flew at the woman, hissing and scratching, hair flying madly. Mr Brooks managed to push his daughter down while the Inspector almost collapsed in shock, breathing heavily. She had seen pretty nutty cases in her time- but this girl-

"What the hell is up with her?"

"Hell, miss. Hell in the mind."

But the girl calmed down, blinking slightly, her wide eyes dilating. She tilted her head and smiled broadly at the Inspector. Then she shuffled over on her knees toward her and picked up the woman's hand and shook the fingers in a childish imitation of a handshake, nodding her head at the same time. The she turned away and promptly forgot about the stranger, returning to rocking and twirling her daisy.

"How did she become this way, Mr Brooks?" All professionalism was gone replaced with a barren pity.

"We thought she'd be safe there- it was so pretty-"

"Huh?"

"The daisy field. She loved the fields so much. We thought it would be safe for her to play there."

"But it wasn't?"

"Well, no. That's when she was attacked."

"What did they do to her?"

"Terrible things, miss. After that- she was gone."

"She went mad?"

"Not quite. But she weren't herself, you know. She couldn't talk to me about it, couldn't talk to anyone. She didn't want us, she just wanted her daisies. She went to her field one day and tried to kill herself there. Arsenic, don't know how she found it. Didn't kill her- but she has these urges to do awful things, to herself and other people."

"Right I'm off. Look, Mr Brooks, I don't want drama. If I do, I tune into the Games. Now if you would kindly show me the door-"

The Inspector hurried out of the house.

**Male**

"Honeykins! Wake up! Reaping Day!"

Capillo yelled in shock as his mother pulled open the curtains. He shrank back from the light as it filled his room.

"Oops, sorry! I forgot you're-"

"Photophobic? Maybe if you stopped fangirling about your precious Games, you could get to know me!"

Capillo felt dejected. What was it with his parents and their television? Since when did primetime drama become more important than their only son? No wait. Not only. Mom was pregnant again, with her long-awaited daughter. Was it Aphrodite or Athena they were going to call her? Ugh, either way she _would _be named after some victor of the Hunger Games.

He wished he could love his parents. He wished his parents could love him. But how could he, when he played such a small part in their lives? And how could they? He was the weird kid, the bullied kid, the one who never had a suntan. The Albo kid. The random kid. When had they ever been proud of him?

Shaking his whitish spiky hair out of his greenish brown eyes and adjusting his glasses, he set off for the Reaping and tried not to think of the almost alien adults he called family.

Reaping

"Alwilda Brooks!"

The Reaping Inspector whispered in the Escort's ear.

"... will be here shortly! Unfortunately she is having some time off, so you people will have to wait until she arrives in the Capitol to see her!"

"Now for the boys." She bent her arm, stretching into the bowl.

Capillo thought fast. His parents loved the Games. If he entered- they'd love him. If he won, he'd never be ignored by them again. If he died- well he had nothing to lose. What was living anyway?

"I volunteer! As tribute," he added, just in case there was some other hidden meaning for the word volunteer.

"Well, well, come up to the stage!"

Capillo wondered if he had done the right thing. Out in the crowds, his parents squealed with delight, clapping wildly and cheering him on.

"Your name?"

"Capillo Ceritules."

"Then District Six, I present with your Tributes: Alwilda Brooks and Capillo Ceritules!"

"...If my District partner isn't here, who do I shake hands with?"

**9) Iresse Nolofinwean**

**10) Xavier Holendo**

**11) Alwilda Brooks**

**12) Capillo Ceritules**


	6. Chapter 6

District Seven

**Female **

Virginia scooped her bushy brown hair into a ponytail, narrow eyes alert. Just as she was about to secure it, the hairband snapped, pinging out of her hand. She frowned at it. What was wrong today? She always put her hair in a ponytail whenever she went with her brothers into the woods. Much as she loved the twigs and leaves of District Seven's trees, it was a pain to get them stuck in her hair.

The Reaping. Now that was it. Reaping Days always SUCKED. She shrugged it off, deciding just to leave her hair as it was. There would be no going into the woods today. No climbing of trees, that ecstatic feeling of being on top of the world. Only in the woods could she be truly happy, because she was free. She hated being cooped up, in like an invisible straitjacket that the Capitol just kept on tightening. She was grumpy and irritable if she was kept out of the woods for too long, she snapped in a manner not unlike her hairband had.

"Squirt's breakfast is on the table!"

She rolled her eyes at the nickname that referred to her diminutive stature. But, better Squirt than Virginia. VIRGINIA. What made her mother decide that that was a good name for her only daughter? Not only did it have no viable abbreviations, it had raised a few eyebrows in the District. Being named for the old state of Virginia in what was once North America smacked of nostalgia. Nostalgia was the first step to rebellion.

No, irritating though it was, Squirt was better.

"Coming Ethan!" She called and ran down the stairs. She slipped slightly in her socks, but her agility stopped her falling.

Her breakfast sat on the table. She noticed the her bowl was piled significantly higher than her brothers': Ethan and Bryan. Part of her, mainly her stomach, was tempted to ignore this and simply wolf it down. But her loyalty to her brothers won out.

"Ethan! You've given me more again. That's not fair."

"You are a growing girl, you need it. Besides, you earned it."

"I've only taken tesserae for myself, as you told me to. At least let me share it." Inside, her honesty winced. Because that was not entirely true.

**Male**

Savan eagerly peeked into his mother's bedroom mirror, only to be disappointed, though few would be if they had his rosy cheeks and childish dimples. Oh well. Puberty would come in its own good time.

"Savan? What are you doing?"

He jumped. "Nothing!"

"Breakfast!" Nonna, the maid called.

He walked around the room one more time. It was a nice room, all the rooms in the house were. By District standards, they were pretty rich. He stroked the surfaces, peeked in the drawers and smelled the perfumes that belonged to his parents. He put on his favourite item, his father's black bowler hat. It fell over his eyes, but one day he would have it and he would wear it every day.

"Savan! Breakfast now!"

He hurried out of the room and down into the kitchen.

"Hey."

"You've not even dressed! Have a quick bath after breakfast." Nonna looked sternly down at him.

"I'll do it Nonna, I promise."

"Good."

"I don't see _why._ The Reaping isn't until two."

"Yes, but you take ages in the bath. You've got to look your best."

"Why do I have to _go," _Savan whinged. "It's not like I'm going to be Reaped. They always pick the poor kids with all the tesserae."

"Don't be such a snob, Savan." Reaping Days were such a bore. Standing around watching boring old movies, standing next to smelly kids who couldn't afford a bath. Having to wait while some dozy old man pulled out names. Then more waiting, then home to watch more Reapings.

He scrubbed in the bath before dressing. Oh well. At least it only happened once a year.

Reaping

"Next please."

Virginia shuffled anxiously in the queue, sticking out a shaky finger to be tested. Ten times. Ten slips out of what? Hundreds. It was a big District. Look at all the other girls. Any of them could picked, not just her. Just ten slips. Or, as her family thought, just six.

Ahead of her, Emma waved to her, the little orphan girl that Virginia had taken tesserae for. What else could she do? Sure, she had lied to her family. But she couldn't let Emma starve. The Capitol could ignore the plight of people who lived so far away, but Emma lived just next door. She had to do something about it. And she had.

Emma gave her a big smile and rubbed her tummy, giving Virginia a thumbs up. Virginia returned the smile. Karma would approve, maybe even stop her being Reaped. Sure, she had extra chances. But it wouldn't be fair for her to be Reaped.

Savan let out a sigh of boredom as the film rolled. Boring boring boring. The old man hobbled over to the girls' bowl. Hurry up already!

The old man opened a slip and squinted at the name.

"Virginia Roberts!"

Virginia's jaw dropped. There was no point in crying, in begging for a volunteer. This was it. Going into the Hunger Games. The thought of dying frightened her, the thought of never seeing family or woods again was agonizing. But she forced herself to look at the positives. No more hiding the truth about tesserae, no more worrying about Reaping. Wasn't there that old saying, that the anticipation was the worst thing? And if she won, (no point in giving up just yet) she would never owe her brothers food ever again. And Emma would be safe.

And who knows? She might even be able to kick some Career butt. Heck, not she was planning on killing anyone or anything.

Unbothered, Savan watched as the girl stepped out of the fifteen year old section and walked to the stage. Finally, something happening. Now could he go home?

"Savan Walder!"

Virginia watched as in the crowds, a thirteen year old boy burst into noisy tears as he walked up to the stage.

It was so unfair. The other boys had like, eight or more slips. He had two. And nobody volunteered for him. Nobody cared. And it wasn't as if he was really old or anything. He wasn't strong or fast or anything. Cuteness could hardly win the Hunger Games.

He shook hands with the girl, his eyes puppy-dog wide. She did not look impressed.

"District Seven, I present you with your Tributes: Virginia Roberts and Savan Walder!"

District Eight

**Female**

"Hello little one." Jenny smiled fondly at the mirror, stroking her pregnant stomach gently, marvelling at its place among her curves. "Are you a boy or a girl?"

Not that it mattered either way. She would love her baby, because it was hers, because it would love her, unconditionally. Her happiness was growing inside of her, she would nurture it and cherish it. One last Reaping, and her life would be all hers to share with her child and her sister, Irene. After years of waiting, years of tears and going nowhere, she could at least settle down with a true family and the happiness she so dreamed of. At last, her beautiful singing would

She would have to worry, girl or boy, when her child went off to the Square on Reaping Days. But it was natural to worry. And it would be worth everything, to see the child's little froggy feet, first smile, to hear the patter of unsteady feet walking first steps with her up and down the corridor, to puzzle over homework with them (not that she would be much help, having left school) and protecting her child from the mistakes she herself had made. Whatever the Capitol took from her, whatever her abusive gangster ex-husband and faithless rich ex-husband took from her, she would not give up these joys.

Not again, at least. This child, unlike her first, would be hers and not handed over to some unfriendly social worker. She would know her child, care for her child and not about the emotionless medical reports sent annually.

This happiness would be hers. She would make it happen.

**Male**

Aden buttoned his shirt carefully, tucking the collar. Sitting on a stool, kicking her little legs aimlessly was his daughter, Logan. She jumped off it and held up in her clenched little fist:

"Tie."

"Thank you, I was just looking for that. Clever girl." He lifted her up and kissed her on the forehead. She giggled. "Mrs Brown- Brownrigg says I'm an accident."

"You are not an accident, you're my little blessing, Hunter too. When you grow up my girl, you will have to learn that when good things happen to us, we must grab them by the horns and enjoy them, in case the Capitol takes them away from us."

"Aden!" Colleen, his wife stood in the doorway, holding their wailing son Hunter by the hand. "Telephone call from the Leader- we must-"

"Let's not discuss our matter with the children around 'Lena, we'll worry them." Aden handed over a dog-eared teddy bear to Hunter who began to eat its ear. Logan gasped in disapproval and pulled him out of the room.

"Our matter" referred to the Rebellion, fruitlessly kept alive by a few old faithfuls including Aden and his beloved wife. The pair of them were teenagers with the weight of the world on their young shoulders. Sometimes it was almost too hard.

"Aden, please. We must call back."

"My darling, I may be a rebel leader but I am also a father. I will not let my family slip away in the abyss of our world. Our Leader is also cruel, you must recognize that. Let's not be so swept away by our cause that we lose sight of what that cause is. The future of our children."

Her face melted into a smile of pride of love. The last feather of the Mockingjay's wings was cased safely in Aden Hanran's heart.

Reaping

"Isn't this exciting? Now, for our lady tribute: Jenny Lin!"

Jenny howled with horror. She turned frantically, searching for someone, anyone could save her. Irene would, she knew. She clung to the last hope. Slowly she made her way (though it was not a long distance to the front) to the stage. There was still time. She could still have her family.

There was a gasp and a thud and Jenny felt sick with panic. Out in the crowd, Irene had fainted. Now she was indeed alone. Tears running down, as if to soothe the child she was expecting, she gripped the handrail of the stage and stood next to the Escort.

Aden was disgusted. It was the worst kind of Reaping. He was not angry with those who stood in shameful silence around him, he was angry with the Capitol, who started it all. Had they no pity? Did they think of anything but themselves? No, they'd probably play the merciful card. Say that they were being merciful to her, by giving the District girls the chance to volunteer for her. Too bad nobody took the chance. Not their fault, they would say.

He wanted nothing more than to tear down the screens and smash the reaping bowls, but the opportunity was denied further when:

"Aden Hanran!"

His own name was called.

He felt as if he had been punched in the gut and almost doubled over with the shock. Not now. Not when he'd been so happy. He wished the world away, but he had to be strong. His children were watching, he couldn't show fear, they would worry. And he would crush himself with the weight if it meant he could take a burden from their shoulders.

He thought back to when he was only nine years old, when his own parents had mounted a similar stage in front of the Justice Building, confessed their treason in flat voices and obediently stepped onto the gallows, hanged for rebellion. He had known then, that they would be executed. But his execution was masked in glory, a sick glory that he wished would burn away with the flames of Rebellion. Like before.

He looked out to where his wife stood, devastated but her tears silent. Somewhere in the silent distance his children were tugging at their supervisor's skirts asking their carer questions, which carried out in the silence.

"Why's Daddy on the stage?"

"Will he come back in time for dinner?"

"He can't miss dinner!"

The Escort shuffled awkwardly. This wasn't going to well for District Eight.

Aden gently shook hands with Jenny, holding her firmly together.

"District Eight, I present you with your Tributes: Jenny Lin and Aden Hanran!"

**13) Virginia Roberts**

**14) Savan Walder**

**15) Jenny Lin**

**16) Aden Hanran**


	7. Chapter 7

**An info dump, but a needed one**

Medea sighed and rolled her eyes, pushing open the door of the classroom. She prepared herself for the usual sight: rowdy Capitol children flicking rubbers and notes at each other. While District teenagers had the prospect of the Reaping to force them to grow up, those raised in the Capitol seemed welded into immaturity.

"Settle down, everyone" her comment was more to herself than to any of her students, for the class continued on as if she had said nothing at all.

Sighing again, she blew the whistle that hung around her neck and reluctantly all heads turned to face her.

"Right. Let's get on with the lesson. I have marked your Finnick Odair essays and though on the whole they were abysmal, a few did stand out due to sheer disbelief. Hermia- you spent the entire four pages talking about how your father doesn't approve of your boyfriend. Might have misread the question, methinks. Hamlet, put the skull down. Rule no. 371: there will be no soliloquies during History class. If you have issues, talk to the school counsellor. No, Iago, you didn't write your essay in invisible ink, you didn't do it at all. Hand it in tomorrow, please. Demetrius, your essay was far too short: "he was well fit" is not adequate analysis of Odair's character! No, it isn't! Ophelia, write bigger please. Not everybody likes to mark homework using an electron microscope. Oh don't cry Ophelia, look if you and Hamlet are having issues you can both see the counsellor.

"Now that that's all cleared up-" she was about to write the date on the board when she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. She extended her hand out to a girl with green hair in the third row.

"There will be no using holographic communicators during class, Titania!"

"But Miss, my boyfriend's being a real b-"

"Moving swiftly on!"

"MISS!"

"What now?!"

"Tybalt snapped the head off my Cato action figure!"

"Get your Avox to superglue it back on. Stop being a drama queen, Mercutio. Now everybody, please turn to page 394. Demetrius, from the top of paragraph two please, "After the Mockingjay Rebellion.""

Demetrius made a huffing sound before proceeding to recite monotonously from the book. "After the Mockingjay Rebellion, President Paylor ruled for twenty-four years. In her later years of power, there were calls in the Capitol to reinstate the Hunger Games as due to the death of Caesar Flickerman six years previously reality television had become insipid. Pressured by her powerful supporters in the Capitol and realising that the lust for violence could never be quenched, Paylor reinstated the Hunger Games but with the help of elderly former Head Gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee double-crossed the Capitol by faking the deaths of the tributes during what is now known as the "Dummy Games" era.

"Tributes would be Reaped, believing that they would die and then transported to the Capitol where in the reinforced Training Center they would be told the truth about the President's deception. A preliminary competition would be held wherein the victor of that year's Games would be decided. The Gamemakers would then design an elaborate plot that would lead that tribute into becoming victor. The tributes would be sent into an arena where using techniques used in old "American" action movies would trick the country into believing them dead. In reality, tributes would be smuggled out of the arena and back to their homes in the Districts with a large sum of money to buy their silence and where they could live the rest of their lives in oblivion.

"Word got out after less than ten Games and the scandal destroyed Paylor. She was persuaded into resignation- what do they mean by that?"

"Beaten, raped and starved into submission, Demetrius."

"Oh right."

"Titania, please continue."

"Paylor retired and moved back to District Eight and was cared for by her children. Her successor officially brought back the Hunger Games permanently. The action met very little resistance from the Mockingjay, who, being middle-aged, married and with children, was no longer viewed as the symbol of rebellion she had once been. The Capitol no longer viewed her as a threat and she lived with her husband in District Twelve until the end of her life."


	8. Chapter 8

District Nine

**Female**

Sunlight played across the shop in the early morning, picking up the colours of her pencils and scattering shafts of light across her counter. Narrowing her keen grey eyes, Lynna Wheat sketched the outline of a pear resting against the cash register. It seemed an odd choice for the subject of a picture but Lynna saw past the objects themselves. The contrast of the pear's smooth curves with the register's shelves and angles, the green blending with the grey, the natural and the manmade. She still remembered with pride the day the Head Peacekeeper himself had bought one of her pictures- not taken, not snatched before it could be hidden. Actually bought. That was what she would do, for the rest of her life. Pictures spoke a language the Capitol did not understand.

The clock chiming brought her back to earth; and she promptly put away her paper and pencils, meticulously careful as she always was. Retying her apron and scraping her long hair back into a bun, she drew up the shop's blinds, dusted off the counter and sorted the mail. Today was Reaping Day, so the shop would not be opening but the familiar method of drawing, dusting and sorting was a comfort, especially today. She had helped her father run his grocery store since she was a little girl and would do so until the day he died.

The sun creeping under the raised blinds illuminated the dent in the wall where she had thrown her knife the day the thief had crept his way into her life. The blade had pinned him to the wall by his coat but he had continued running, tearing his flesh audibly. The thief had shown no signs of pain but she would make him pay for it one day. She would find him and he would pay what he owed her. Maybe he was starving and needed the food. But that had given him no right to take from her what was hers. Why her father's store and not another's? Why take from those who deserved what they had?

She knew his face, his long face and high forehead and those thin lips that had grimaced with the effort of breaking free. She knew him and she would find him.

**Male**

Matt winced looking at the scar on the back of his right arm, courtesy of one pissed off greengrocer's daughter. It had been worth it to get the food, but he wouldn't be going back there in a hurry. That girl looked like the kind that remembered a face. He thought he had made it, she was turned away from him at the time and he had made no noise, but that girl had eyes in the back of her head and reflexes that he wouldn't have matched unless he had been as alert as he was. But that day hadn't been a total loss, he had made off with the apples he came for and the girl had donated him a knife, if in a slightly less than generous fashion.

Deadly boring as it was, he preferred his job in the factory, though he had to watch his step there too. There had been more than a few warnings from the overseers about fighting with other workers, especially stronger, older workers. Too bad. He would get the money to care for his family and that was that. He had already done enough, dropping out of school to earn money for his family ever since his father, Marc, had lost his own right arm in a factory accident. Now others would have to chip in their fair share, retailers and Peacekeepers alike. Though stealing off Peacekeepers was foolish. "Grocer Girl" had knives, Peacekeepers had guns.

He remembered the furious expression on the girl's face, almost as if she possessed the Sower temper herself. It was a shame really, that he would be forever branded in her memory as a thief and a cheat. Perhaps that was true, but he was also Matt the brother (To Archie and Saria) Matt the son (to Helen and Marc) and Matt the friend (to Eric and Henry, his twin friends.) Matt the wit, Matt the protector, Matt the ministrel who never stopped whistling the same four note tune when he was daydreaming.

Too bad that few knew him as he really was.

Reaping

"Ladies first! Lynna Wheat!"

She was in shock. What the actual hell? She had no tesserae! All those kids out there had as much chance as she had had, and more. This wasn't fair!

Weakly, she walked up the stage almost in a dream, only vaguely aware of her surroundings.

"Matthew Sower!"

She glanced over the crowd to see who was moving- and did a double take.

She knew that face.

Matt too felt shock as his name was called. He felt the urge to smash , to shout and stamp with frustration, but reality called and he clamped his mouth shut, forcing his temper in check.

It was the last year too. No tesserae, and now his family and friends would see him dead within a week or the Games beginning. What about his family? What about the money and food he had scraped together for them? Did that effort mean nothing to the Capitol? Of course it did, when had they ever had to stoop lower and lower to make ends meet?

It didn't help that Grocer Girl was Reaped too. Great. Now all she had to do was throw a knife at him in the Games and bye bye world.

"Tributes shake h- actually maybe not."

Lynna glared at Matt, her eyes as sharp as her knife had been. She turned haughtily from him and he shrugged. Looks couldn't kill, not yet.

"District Nine, I present you with your Tributes: Lynna Wheat and Matthew Sower!"

District Ten

**Female**

Stepping lightly on her toes, Sabella negotiated the rocky field. It would not do to trip on a rock and crash into another one- not again. Last time she had almost lost an eye and the scar on her face showed prominently, paler than her sunbrowned skin. She made her way over to the shed to store her sickle, which was almost a part of her arm since she had started work on the fields here, but had since also taken on work at the barns, knowing everything there was to know about raising- and killing animals.

Nimbly, she made her way out the farmland area, shaking loose bits of straw from her hair, dark brown with streaks of auburn. She stopped off at the two-roomed hut she shared with her father and brother, Hadley. She didn't mention the Reaping. She didn't have to. The Games were a curse of their family. Just after giving birth to Hadley, Sable's own mother had been Reaped for the Games and killed with a spear to the head in the bloodbath. Nobody in their family spoke of the Games since, it hung like a cloud in the air stopping laughter and halting smiles. Sable's own father had never been able to fill the gap in their family, seeing it as an insult to the memory of Sable's mother.

Instinctively, she wrapped her arm protectively around her brother. They had to stick together, as a family.

Silently, they walked down the road, only breaking the solemnity at the sight of her friends: Lev, Marisol and Cornelia. Lev and Marisol were childhood playmates, but Cornelia was a newer addition to their group, joining just a few weeks previously when Sabella had found her stuffed uncomfortably in a locker at school.

At the sight of Gavin, her boyfriend, Sable gave a big friendly smile and came at last out of her shell, talking nonstop about everything and nothing in her own little way and for a time, she could forget about the Reaping looming up ahead at the Justice Building.

**Male**

"Good morning to you, madam!"

Nicholas Spring-Stone removed the hat from his head and made a deep bow to a passing woman.

"Umm.. morning." The woman gave him a quizzical look and made a point of hurrying on.

Nick frowned. OK then. Never mind, she must be really worried about the Reaping he thought. Who wasn't? He certainly was. His father, Steven, had the herding to distract himself, but his mother- his loving and worrying mother Ellen had no such employment to keep the fear at bay. His older brother, Adam, had had his last Reaping last year, he was safe. Nina's last Reaping would be next year- but he and his twin sister Anna, at 14, both had another four Reapings to get through. He almost envied his three younger brothers: Charlie, Robert and Eddie, now all dead. They had no Reapings to worry about did they? His elder brother Steven had nothing to fear, having been run over by a rogue tractor. His sisters Mary, Ellen, Eliza and Jane had nothing to worry about either: cholera had taken them. Losing Adam's twin Eric had been hard on everyone, especially Adam, but he was free now wasn't he?

Uneasily, Nicholas made his way to the Reaping, quiet and humble as a mouse.

Reaping

"Ladies first!"

The Escort made her way fussily over to the bowl and drew a slip of paper, carefully unfolding as the crowd held its breath. It could be any one of them.

"Sabella Dyson!"

Sabella tried to make her way out of her section, but couldn't, frozen with fear. So this was what it was like to be Reaped, and it was awful. Her poor mother! To think that she might go the same way!

The sound of Peacekeeper's boots making their way towards her was enough to send her scuttling to the stage. Once up there, she locked eyes with her brother and he burst into tears.

"Now for the boys! Nicholas- Nicholas Spring-Stone!"

Out in the crowds, the cameras zoomed in on Nick's peculiar face which was flicking through a kaleidoscope of emotions very quickly: shock, anger, fear and calm every few seconds. Finally, he forced himself to be calm as he mounted the stage and joined Sabella.

"District Ten, I present you with your Tributes: Sabella Dyson and Nicholas Spring-Stone!"

**17) Lynna Wheat**

**18) Matthew Sower**

**19) Sabella Dyson (Hoover Girl)**

**20) Nicholas Spring-Stone**

**Ok, these Reapings didn't go especially well. Hopefully they should get more memorable in later chapters.**


	9. Chapter 9

District Eleven

**Female**

Coriander touched the smooth skin of the apple, running her finger along its shiny red surface. She used to love playing in the orchards here as a child with Samson, her older brother.

Her friend Pippa ran up to the base of the tree.

"Cori? What are you doing up there? Do get down before someone sees you!"

"You saw me."

"I'm your friend. Am I going to hand you over?"

She shrugged. "Peacekeepers wouldn't shoot me without a camera to film it. All the cameras are being used for the Reaping today. I am not in danger, not now at least. Besides, I wanted to climb my tree one last time before- what will happen."

Pippa sighed, trying once more to talk Coriander out of it.

"You don't have to, you know. Nobody would blame you if you didn't volunteer. Now do get down."

Coriander smiled at her friend's loyal persistence. "Fine. I will get down from this tree, if you will accept my decision. Samson has. My parents have. Derry would have, if he had a head on his shoulders. You must too."

"Ok." Coriander leapt down from the tree. She rolled her eyes fondly when her friend continued her persuasion. "But what difference does it make?"

"To my life? Very little. You know the reports, Pippa, this cancer will kill me. What difference does it make to the girl I volunteer for? A world of difference. A life's difference. A family's worth of difference. I am no Career, I am not volunteering to win the Hunger Games and gain glory that way. I aim to find my glory in an entirely different way and I shall win the greatest prize I know."

"Which is?"

"What I believe to be the right thing."

**Male**

"I AM INVINCIBLE!"

Jathan's brother groaned. "I know, you said."

"Behold my epicness!"

"Of what? Your chest hair? For goodness' sake, put a shirt on."

"Reapings do not concern me. Mere mortals worry about being Reaped. The Invincible have better things to think about."

"I don't know, death seems a pretty important subject to me."

Jathan huffed, flipping his blond hair out of his brown eyes. "Yes well. Your existence is less invincible than mine. This is my last year, I have no tesserae, less than an hour of boredom and then I shall free and invincible."

"You just used the word invincible four times in the last paragraph. Seriously, find another epic word."

"Never. The Invincible cannot do such a thing. That is the one thing they cannot do."

"Why?"

"Because it is stupid and meaningless. I do not do stupid and meaningless things BECAUSE I"

"oh gawd, here we go"

"AM"

"Here we go again."

"INVINCIBLE!"

Reaping

Coriander stood up slightly straighter at the end of the propaganda film and licked her lips. Here goes.

"Ladies first! Saturnina Woldt!"

"I volunteer!" she prayed her voice wasn't shaky.

People gasped and turned around to stare at her. Without making a fuss or showing fear, she steadily made her way up to the front, not daring to regret her decision.

"Your name, my dear?"

"Coriander Flair."

"A round of applause for our volunteer!"

The audience clapped and Pippa shouted out "Go Cori!"

"Now for the boys. Jathan Lane!"

"WHAT?"  
"JATHAN LANE!"

"Yes I heard you the first time!"

Slightly ticked off at being deemed less invincible, Jathan marched out. Huh. He would own these Games. He was invincible after all. Too bad that other girl would die though. She must be regretting it now that she had beheld his invincibleness.

District Twelve

**Female**

"There you are." Maria Perkins tweaked the bow on the head of her eldest daughter. "You look lovely," she said in an almost consoling voice.

Anita simply blinked at her reflection. "Thank you," she mumbled in her own little way, her thin lips barely moving.

Her mother placed a hand on her shoulder. "Would you like Ella to take you to the reaping?"

"I can walk. Julie," To most people this would seem a strange reply, but Maria was used to her daughter's vague replies enough to understand them. In the next room, baby Polly started crying and her mother hurried off.

Silently, Anita walked out of the house and down the dirt path, conscious of the bruises on her long legs. They still hurt sometimes, but it had been worth it to get away from that dog. That dog. Had she known if it was the one had killed her grandmother, she would have chased it and fought it with all she had, fought for revenge. But without that knowledge, running was the better option.

She wandered on, turning her head to take in everything. She muttered under her breath the name and properties of every plant she could see. It was a fun game.

Luckily, she did not forget the Reaping. No kid in District 12 would, but Anita was more prone than most despite her tesserae. She found it easier just to think of them as something really far away, like a distant country. It wasn't hard, the Capitol was miles away and the arenas even further.

She heard a flapping over head but did not register it, too intent on observing subtle differences in the foliage.

But when something glided down her shoulder, she began to shake with anger. How dare that bird poop on her. Today of all days. She did not shrug, cuss and move on.

Anita Perkins did not forget a grudge.

The pigeon fluttered down and began to waddle along the side of the road.

Anita chased it, eyes narrowing and eyebrows knitting with anger. Just as it began to lift off the ground in flight, she leapt at it, forcing the bird down and trapping it with her hands. It flapped and squawked but she just squeezed harder. She snapped its neck and began pulling out its feathers, tears streaking her high cheekbones.

"Anita! ANITA!"

She looked away, not up at her mother.

"Anita, we've talked about this. You mustn't attack animals, they'll think you're hunting. You have to control yourself, you managed it for the last two years. Now hurry along."

Shuffling in her dirty shoes and flithy socks, Anita muttered sorry; and then goodbye. When she had gone a significant distance, her mother took a closer look at the pigeon, before wrapping it in her apron and hurrying back to the hut to cook it.

**Male **

Sadiki frowned, lines creasing the scars on his face. No food. Again. All he had to do was scrape through the next three years and then he'd make it to the coal mines. If he played his cards right, he might even make it earlier. Few relished the idea of coal mining, but Sadiki didn't mind the idea. Work without having to do much talking, pretty much always in the dark- not too bad. And of course the food- regular food coming in meant it was very tempting. He thought about his tesserae- not much either, but then he only had to put his name in extra times for his dad and himself. In many ways, he thought himself lucky. He was grateful for what he had.

Despite being from the poorest part of the district, he made it to the Reaping quite early. He hung around his pen, watching the others slowly file in like sheep. He wondered which one of them would be Reaped and then quickly put the thought away as that only led to thinking about the Games themselves. He didn't see the point of them, why not just round up 24 randomly and execute them? Didn't really make all that much difference. Why did they have to draw it out?

He couldn't name many friends among them, he was the kind of kid who sat at the back of class, just studying quietly. He'd talk to people who talked to him and that was it mainly. He didn't get picked on or anything (unless you counted being called Big-Nose, but he didn't) so really he couldn't find anything to complain about.

Reaping

In the traditional District Twelve fashion, it was "Lades first!"

"Anita Perkins!"

A tall, dirty girl with a long nose walked up to the front. Sadiki watched her and was glad at least that although she looked anxious she was not emotional. He didn't think he could take it if another girl had a breakdown, like last year. No point in even waiting for a volunteer.

"Now for the boys! Sadiki Oatheball!"

Sadiki closed his eyes in despair. No volunteer for him either. He would go into the Hunger Games. But at least he had few people to mourn him. And it would all be over in a week, so they wouldn't be dragging it out too much. And the Games wouldn't be for a short while, anyway. He'd have some time to enjoy himself, see other districts when travelling. Silver lining on every cloud.

Flicking his ruffled sandy hair out of his deep blue eyes, he shook hands with the Perkins girl. She looked at him warily, but returned his hopeful smile.

* * *

The Escorts of every District shooed their tributes inside their respective Justice Buildings, to say goodbye for what would surely be the last time.

**21) Coriander Flair**

**22) Jathan Lane**

**23) Anita Perkins**

**24) Sadiki Oatheball (apologies, I screwed up his reaping. sorry. will really try and do more on these characters throughout the story, but it's easier to write them in action.)**

**Reapings over! Yay! oh and the finale has been planned. **


	10. Chapter 10

**OK, so basically goodbyes is in reverse District order so that people who waited for reapings won't have to wait as long for goodbyes. Train rides will be in usual District order, ditto interviews and private sessions. I'll try and make sure each tribute has roughly equal coverage. Until the arena, that is. After they enter the arena, obviously they will all pretty much start dying (come on, hardly spoilers!) and after they die... they won't show up that much. Because they'll be dead. Figures. **

**Oh, I might be changing a few minor details in characters. just minor. **

District Twelve

Anita stood by the window, hands neatly clasped in front of her. She watched a beetle trek across the flaking paint on the windowsill.

She closed her eyes, as if trying to memorize her mother's embrace as Maria stood behind her.

"Hi, Mom." was all she could say.

She felt herself begin to tremble as if the ground was shaking. Her mother hushed her and sat her down on the sofa next to the window. "I brought you your token." Anita opened her eyes to see a small metal girl in her hands, with a funny round wire for a hat and what looked like wings.

"What is she?"

"She is what is known as an angel. Back a long time ago, they celebrated this festival called Christmas, where everybody would have fun and give presents and eat lots of food- and be with their families."

"Did they have Hunger Games at Christmas?"

"No, they didn't have Hunger Games at all. But at that happy time they decorated their houses and even their trees with metal decorations."

"Like this one?"

"Just like this one. People thought that angels would watch over them and keep them safe. So this is your angel and she can remind you that we are always watching over you, even if- even if you can't come back."

"I love her. I promise I'll keep her safe."

"And in return, she'll keep you safe."

**Anita: a small metal Christmas angel**

* * *

"I've come to see you off."

Sadiki smiled at the sight of his father, who was tired as always.

"Thank you for taking the time to visit me, Dad."

"Oh, of course I would. You are my son after all." His father squeezed his shoulder and Sadiki's smile broadened. "Do your best in the Games, Sadiki, but if not- well, at least you'll see Mom again."

"Yeah. Guess so." He tried to make the best out of a bad job. "Any messages you want me to pass on?" he said, trying to sound lighthearted.

"Only that you're the best son I could have wanted, that I love her very much and I'll see her soon, like I promised her."

He held up a locket, passed down from generation to generation on his father's side. He looked down almost shyly. "I know it's a kinda feminine token, but I'd like you to wear it if you want."

"My pleasure."

Sadiki looped the chain around his neck, the comforting weight of the locket resting on his shirt. His dad hugged him for what he imagined was the last time.

**Sadiki: a locket**

* * *

District Eleven

Coriander could feel Samson's tears spilling into her hair.

"Coriander Flair, you are the bravest girl I've ever known." He said fervently, before giving a weak smile. "Even if you are named after a herb."

"I did the right thing," she said breathlessly. "Whatever happens now, I did the right thing."

"Of course you did." He squeezed her shoulders firmly. "Keep doing the right thing, even when you enter the Games, ok?"

"I will try."

"I know I taught you to fight with a staff, even if you probably will never get the chance to use one, but please be careful who you kill."

"Why?"

"'Cause if you do come home," Samson fought to keep doubt out of his voice, "I want you to be my sister, not anyone else."

"Point taken. Where's Mom and Dad?"

Samson extended his arms in a gesture of confusion. "I guess they thought I could say it better than they could."

"Say what?"

"Say well done. Say we love you. Say goodbye."

**Coriander: token not known**

* * *

"Bad luck Jathan." His brother looked genuinely sorry to see him go.

"Luck? Mere mortals believe in luck. The Invincible do not need luck."

"Because they are Invincible?"

"Yeah, how did you guess?"

"Oh I don't know... a wild stab in the dark- which is what will probably happen to you."

**[I know, I stole that line off Blackadder series 2. But it just worked for this scene.]**

"Don't worry about me, Martin. I have this whole Games thing sorted. I am totally going to win."

"How? Sure, you're bright and all. You can talk sense when you avoid using the word "invincible." You're fast when there's food involved. But you need to know what you are up against. You never pay attention to the Games. You can barely recognise a victor, let alone how they won. What even is your strategy?"

"To be invincible!"

"How exactly do you plan to do that?"

Jathan narrowed his brown eyes. "That is not for mere mortals to question. Your brains cannot handle the sheer power of the awesomeness that is invincibleness. I will win, and then all you people can figure out how I did it afterwards while I enjoy the epicness of invincibleness- with a little Capitol polish."

"Watch out for your District partner, Jathan- she's a volunteer and from the way she climbed that stage, I'd say she didn't do that on the spur of the moment. That was planned."

Jathan shrugged. "Career or no Career, she is not Invincible."

"How do you know?"

"The Invincible recognise a fellow Invincible."

Martin tried not to bash his head against the desk across the room. Just as well, he thought, that Jathan didn't know he could easily be beaten- and killed. Better perhaps, that he lived his final days calm and confident, than knowing the full truth about the horror he was about to face.

* * *

District Ten

"The odds aren't in our favour, are they?" Sable whispered. The family had formed a protective huddle around her when they had been allowed to say goodbye, as if they couldn't bear to ever let her go.

"There are no odds. Just the Capitol," whispered her younger brother, but Sable's father spoke over him. "You can make it Sable." he said with gritted teeth, willing it to be true. Unable to bear the likely truth, her brother joined in. "Sure you can, Sable."

But the words seemed empty in the face of the Games.

"Friends here to see Miss Dyson. Would relatives please leave to give time for Miss Dyson to make her goodbyes to them."

"Give Felix a hug for me!" Sable called out to them as they left, willing herself not to cry. Her father gave her a comforting nod, then the door slammed and he was gone from her.

She managed to keep her resolve intact as her friends cried around her, begging her not to die. She bit her lip and nodded, not able to bear the idea of breaking down.

As she imagined her mother must have done.

No, this time a Dyson would make it. This time around, she would be their victor.

She would.

At the sight of Gavin, her resolve crumbled into tears. She clung onto his chest while he stroked her hair.

"I love you Sable, whatever you do in the Games."

"I love you too, Gavin- oh Gavin-"

She screamed as he was dragged away from her.

She looked at the bracelet her mother had worn into the Games. The grass was brown and coarse, but the strands still wove tightly together.

Chaining her to her fate.

**Sabella: Grass weave bracelet**

* * *

Nicholas toyed with the string bracelet around his ankle. The sight of it brought flickering into his mind, the flickering of flames.

That was it. This charred piece of string had made it through the house fire, had been blown to his feet by the wind. Of all the things he had in that house before it burned down, this had survived. Through all of the chaos that had followed, the accidents and cholera, he too had survived. How long was a piece of string? How long would he live? The answers to both were equally vague.

Yes, he decided, as his family mourned around him, as if he was already dead. If the piece of string could blow its way through a house fire, if he could survive with it through the disasters that followed, so would he survive with it through the arena. He may be no sturdier than the string, but he had not come through all that to give up now.

He would try to survive. He would try to win.

**Nicholas: string anklet**

* * *

District Nine

"I'll get him. With my last breath, I'll get him."

Her father looked at her sadly. "The Games are getting to you already. Please, I don't like the thief any more than you do. But for goodness' sake- yes, for _goodness'_ sake, don't plan a kill. That's what makes a murderer, a true murderer. Don't make my daughter a murderer."

"He took from us! This wouldn't have happened if-"

"The Sower boy didn't pull your name from the bowl. Let it go Lynna, please."

She sighed, years creasing into her face, years an old woman should have had. But in that day Lynna felt as if she should have had a hundred lifetimes already.

"It's easier to blame him," she whispered.

"I know it is. But we cannot always do what is easy, Lynna. You've never taken the easy path before, you are better than that and the Games will not change that, I hope. Gwen will be here any minute. She is expecting remember, so don't- don't worry her. Ease her. Sarah will be coming soon, make sure you remind her about Felon. I don't want his mother favouring the thief over you."

Felon Rye, Lynna's brother-in-law, was the son of the active mentor for District Nine, Graynee. Lynna had not often met Graynee, but she hoped she bore enough resemblance to Sarah to remind the old woman of family loyalties.

"I thought you said we weren't to take it out on the thief." Her father shuffled. "I don't want you to kill him. But I want you to live, not him."

The rest of the goodbyes felt like a bizarre form of family reunion, that bore disturbing resemblance with a funeral. Lynna played her part, careful not to upset the balance between sorrow and hysterics. She fiddled with the beads of Sarah's bracelet, careful to make her choice of token a reminder of her mentor's connection with the family.

She wondered what more parts she would have to play in the future.

**Lynna: an old bracelet**

* * *

"You'll win, Matt, you'll win!" Archie bounced on the balls of his feet, happy-go-lucky as ever. Saria nodded shyly, expressing her belief less vivaciously but no less enthusiastically.

Matt thought of how much he would miss their football games together.

Even if the football hadn't really been acquired through legal means.

Matt's father rubbed the stump of his left arm. "Do us proud kid."

"I will," Matt said, loyalty to his family flaring up. "I may be a criminal, but I'm not- well, that criminal,"

"We know what you mean," his mother said and he laughed tentatively. At least his mother wasn't angry- if she had been, it would not have been bearable. Helen Sower was the one who had passed down the temper.

"You can obviously steal supplies, I know you'll be careful- but keep out of the way of other tributes."

"And the Wheat girl?"

"_Especially _the Wheat girl."

**Matthew: token not known**

* * *

District Eight

"This can't happen!"

"I'm afraid it already has, Miss Lin."

"I volunteer to take my sister's place!"

"The deadline has passed. Your sister has already been announced as tribute."

"It's not fair! I was going to volunteer for her!"

"Motivation does not qualify as action, Miss Lin."

"I would have! I _would_ have!" Angry tears streamed down Irene's face. "I couldn't stop myself from passing out!"

"Other volunteers have not suffered that problem."

Irene balled her hands into fists. "It's not fair that a pregnant woman goes into the Hunger Games. It's- it's unfair disadvantage! Technically-" she thought quickly. "Technically, it isn't legal. Because with her unborn child, she is two people. And this Games isn't meant to have twenty five tributes."

The Mayor raised his eyebrows. "Much as I would like to help you, Miss Lin, I think you will find that this is legal. Miss Lin does not represent two tributes as the definition of a tribute is slightly different to that of a person."

"So you are saying my sister's not a human being?"

"Not at all. But a tribute is between the ages of 12 and 18. An unborn child is nowhere near that age range. May I remind you of a precedent in this matter: Katniss Mellark, then Everdeen. That should be evidence enough for the Capitol's decision. Your sister will participate."

"But she-"

"No Ifs. No Buts. This is the way of the Hunger Games."

The Mayor promptly left the room.

"No luck."

Jenny's shoulders, stiff with hope, drooped.

Jenny's mother, Pera, entered the room, clutching her handbag as if it were entering the Games.

"I've failed you Mom."

"Never." Pera wrapped her arms protectively around her daughter.

Jenny buried her head in her hands.

"My kids deserved more than I could ever give them."

"All children in Panem do." Irene gestured frantically at the door. "Oh screw them if they hear!" Pera said angrily.

"I just wanted to be a good mother." Jenny swallowed. "Is that too much to ask?"

Comforting replies dried up in the dank room. Irene could not shake off the guilt that clung to her like a child- Jenny's child even- like a child clinging onto her legs.

"Happy Hunger Games," said Jenny bitterly, curling into a ball on a sofa. "And may the odds be _ever _ in your favour."

**Jenny: a patch of material,sewn by herself and her sister, originally part of her wedding dress.**

* * *

Aden waited, as patiently as he could, for the arrival of his family. Although he dreaded being forced to say goodbye, he had to see them one last time. Painful as it was, this needed to happen.

He waited. Hours passed, but he was not called and though he eagerly awaited his children's pattering steps running up the corridor, they did not come.

Despairing, he opened the door to see the Head Peacekeeper standing just outside.

"My family? They should be here by now. Where are they?"

"The train will be departing in fifteen minutes."

"Then I'll need to see them now. I'll ask again, where are they? Colleen Hanran should be here by now, Logan and Hunter too. Where are they?"

"Communications issues, Mr Hanran. Their visit has been cancelled. The Capitol will renew communications forthwith."

"I don't want your communications, I want to see my family!"

Panic and longing seemed to well up inside him, almost quashing the anger against the Capitol for what they had done and would do. He called out in desperation, he called out their names:

"Colleen? Colleen? Logan! Hunter! Colleen! _Colleen!_"

But there was no answer, even as he screeched himself until sound was impossible.

**Aden: n/a**


	11. Chapter 11

**PSST! Illuin's doing a SYOT. Submit. Go on. It'll be great. **

**Apologies for a technical inaccuracy: Capillo's eyes aren't actually greenish brown, they are reddish-purple. I think I must have confused them with someone else. Sorry.**

District Seven

Virginia opened her mouth to greet her mother but was arrested by a stinging slap across the face. Shocked and hurt, she felt tears welling up in her eyes.

"Why?" Her mother yelled. "Why?!"

That was it. Emma must have told on her.

"Doesn't make any difference now," she muttered.

"What on earth made you take tesserae for that girl? After everything we told you about being safe and not getting yourself Reaped! You've betrayed us Virginia, you've broken our trust and faith in you. We expected you to be sensible and keep safe!"

Virginia, slighted at the affront, became indignant.

"I can't just go on living in a little bubble and ignoring everything! Besides, it was just tessera for one person, big deal! Tessera was the sensible thing, it barely made a difference to the risk. It was worth it, ok? So stop yelling at me- and don't call me Virginia!"

Her mother sighed, as if exhausted. "Was it worth my daughter- _my _daughter being Reaped?"

Virginia looked down at the floor and played with her sleeves, pulling them over her hands. "It might have happened anyway," she said, though she couldn't keep the doubt from it.

Ethan and Bryan slipped in, holding glasses of water from the dispenser in the corridor. Virginia's father followed them, as if they had needed escorting. But in this day and age, walking- or worse, wandering around the Justice Building was a suspicious activity.

They stood against the wall, sipping tiny gulps at a time, eyes never leaving their gaze off the floor.

Eventually, they broke the pretence and ran up to Virginia and hugged her, ignoring the plastic cups spilling where they had been dropped on the floor.

"Hey Squirt," Ethan said gently. "Think of us if there are any trees in the arena, k?"

Virginia laughed shakily. "I'll be thinking of you guys anyway."

"Do us proud, Squirt." Ethan gulped. "Seven Pride, right?"

"Yeah, go Team Lumber! Woo!" Her brothers smiled at her sarcasm, so reminiscent of her old self.

Virginia felt the smooth weight of her birthday present as her father pressed it into her palm. (Birthday present? Oh my god she's Gollum! No, just kidding.)

She looked down at the small, blue glass marble. Who could guess how long her family had saved to get it for her all those years ago.

She looked at the V scratched into its surface.

V for Virginia.

**Virginia: Blue glass marble, carved with initial**

* * *

Savan had not stopped crying since the woman had pulled his name at the Reaping. Nonna sighed and hugged him, rocking him gently.

"Why did it have to be _me_?"

"It'll be OK, kid," Savan's father wiped his damp forehead with a handkerchief. "We'll sponsor you."

"_Really?_"

"Sure. We'll get you what you need and then in the Games you just have to stay out of the way until you come home." He did not want to add that even if he sold their house he would not be able to afford more than a stale sandwich for Savan. And not even a BLT sandwich at that.

"Here. Your mother gave this to me when we married. Now it is yours. Don't forget that she died so that you could be born. Now you can live to remember her."

Savan wiped his eyes and cursed his luck. At least his father promising to sponsor him made him feel slightly better.

**Savan: a silver locket with a picture of his mother inside**

* * *

District Six

"OhmygodOhmygod you are actually going into the Hunger Games!" His mother went into fangirl meltdown, jumping up and down and flapping her hands.

"Write to us!" His father said excitedly. "Tell us all about it! The Capitol, the train, training, the parade- omg, the parade! You must tell us everything!"

Capillo sighed. They were happy, at least. He wished he could say the same for himself.

"We'll totally sponsor you!"

"Yes! Sweetykins, you must mention us in your interview! Then, we'd be like, famous!" She fangirl squealed.

"Anything else?"

"Not that we can think of. We'll let you know if there's anything more."

Inside, Capillo was hurt. Anything else meant do you love me, would you miss me, would you cry if I died? But, as usual, his parents though only of the Games. He may as well have been dead already.

Maybe he had never even really been alive, to them.

**Capillo: his inhaler**

* * *

District Five

Iresse's mother, Anaire Nolofinwean, fought back tears as she knew they would irritate her daughter.

"I love you, Iresse. And we'll all miss you very much."

"I should bloody well hope so. I've been living with you the last fourteen years. I'd be quite miffed if I died and you didn't care."

"Come back to us."

"Sure I will, technically. But in one piece or two? Maybe I'll come back as little crumbs in a bag. Maybe I'll just be a little pile of ashes and you'll scatter me over a lawn and then the wind will blow and I'll go everywhere, in your eyes and up your noses."

"As in life, so in death."

"You said it Finde."

"You'll win, I'm sure."

"Yeah, right. You're just saying that to make me feel better. Whatever. I'm probably going to die." She shrugged it off, nibbling her nails.

Her brother Turu, although used to his little sister's unusual outlook on life, was surprised. "You seem cool with it."

She pulled a face. "I live in a world filled with idiots. I will be going to the Capitol, which has even more idiots, only slightly richer ones. Then I will enter a teenage death match, with 23 teenage idiots. Someone will be such an idiot they'll kill me. If there is life after death, I hope it will be more slightly more intelligent than the idiocy of the living. Seriously, if brains were gunpowder the Rebellion would have lasted approximately sixteen minutes and the Dark Days would be better known as the Slightly Dim Lunchtime."

"But don't you care? At all?"

She raised an eyebrow. "You kidding me? If you fed tributes on the number of f***s I give, it really would be the Hunger Games."

Sigh. There's sad goodbyes... and then there is Iresse. While other tributes wept and lamented their misfortune, clinging to lost hopes, she flopped around in the Justice Building, counting windows, swearing at secretaries and wondering what was for dinner.

**Iresse: a watch (functional, not pretty. 'Cause, you know, when you're in the Hunger Games and have less than a week to live, you'll want to know the time.)**

* * *

"Good luck kid" His father patted him awkwardly on the shoulder.

"Thanks," Xavier said, unsmiling. His father sighed, then sat down beside him.

"I know we've never really been close and I really should have spent more time with you, but you are the best son I could have asked for."

Xavier tried to think of something to say. Almost as if the words had been put there, he said: "And you're the best dad I could have asked for."

His mother began to weep, wrapping her arms around him. Xavier found himself growing suddenly, very sad that he would never see them again combined with relief that at at last he had been able to say exactly the right thing.

At least in the arena there wouldn't be much time for socialising.

**Xavier: n/a**

* * *

"I can't believe it!" Charlotte made herself squeal with excitement. "I am actually going into the Hunger Games!"

Her brothers looked at her in a mixture of awe and incredulity.

"What made you volunteer?"

"I don't know." She blushed. "I guess- well, you only live once, you know?"

"And you're going to win, right?"

"Of course!"

"Charlotte Stillwater- our little victor!" Her parents looked on her with pride, a faint tinge of worry in their faces.

"'Bout time. District Four hasn't had a victor for like, ages."

Charlotte shrugged. "Hey, never mind the past. Whatever we did, we're still a Career District. Can't be all that bad, can it?"

"I'm sure you'll do great!" Her brothers' smiles, looked a bit more forced now. "Don't forget your token!"

Charlotte smiled, reaching for the silver trident made of tin foil. "Thanks for making it, Steve."

"It's ok. Just remember what it means, ok?"

Her smile grew wider. "It means I must always play to my strengths."

**Charlotte: tin foil trident**

* * *

"So you're really going into the Hunger Games?" His little brother looked up at him, eyes wide and shocked.

" 'fraid so, Nep." Nep's eyes rapidly filled with tears.

"That's horrible!"

He shrugged. "That's the way the cookie crumbles" he said broodingly. He'd been brooding ever since his name had been called.

His father came into the room, swigging from a nearly empty bottle of scotch. He grunted at Damian who returned the greeting with a scowl.

"You're to look after him, you hear?"

"Huh?"

Still holding onto his little brother's hand, Damian drew himself up to his full height. "You have to take care of Nep, understand? He's your son, not that bloody bottle!"

His father clenched his fists aggressively. "Don't you tell me what to do."

"Mom would agree with me. She died when Nep was born, when you neglect him you spit on her grave!"

His father leapt at him, bottle in hand.

"Stop it!" They turned. Nep pushed himself between them. "Stop fighting!"

Damian nodded. "Ok, Nep. For you."

Scoffing at them, his father smashed his bottle into a wastepaper bin.

Nep's eyes didn't leave Damian's face. "You will win, won't you."

Damian swallowed. "I'll try."

His father snorted. "Yeah, he'll _try._"

"Shut it!" Damian shouted at him.

Nep ignored his father and fumbled in his pocket for something.

"I found this on the beach."

It was an aqua blue ring, a little worn from the waves but quite pretty. It was quite a feminine piece of jewellery and a little tight around Damian's finger, but he was past caring.

"Thanks, Nep."

**Damian: aqua blue ring**

* * *

"I need to tell you." Leigh took a big breath. Shayen almost forgot her fear and anxiety in her curiosity. "What?"

"I love you" she said in a rush. Then she breathed out, not quite able to look Shayen in the eye.

"I was going to tell you before the Reaping" she said. "But- I didn't make it. But I had to telll you now- just in case- you know-"

Shayen did know. She had already gone through about fifty worse case scenarios in her head.

"Thanks for telling me," she said, pushing her glasses nervously up her nose. "You know my answer already but- thanks."

Leigh beamed at her. "Come back, ok?"

"I'll do my best."

Leigh winked at her, careful not to disturb her welling tears. "Oh and tell your District partner that if he even _thinks _about hurting you, I shall castrate him with a blunt pair of tweezers."

Shayen laughed nervously. "Thanks, Swid. I feel safer already."

Her friend looked at the clock. "Your parents will be here in a minute."

"Right. Don't worry, I won't tell them."

"Thanks." Looking a little relieved, even in her grief, Leigh made for the door but was stopped by Shayen who wrapped her in a hug. Unable to contain her sorrow any more, Leigh let her tears flow freely in Shayen's hair.

Shayen thought of what Leigh had said to her as she stepped onto the train but stopped when she realised something.

"Bum" she said to herself. "Forgot my token. Dammit. Today has been such an illogical day, it's been really quite awful."

**Shayen: n/a**


	12. Chapter 12

"Morgan!"

He looked up, raising his head out of his hands, to see Mary-Ann before him. He smiled at her- his friend, his partner in crime- and why not say it? His role model.

There was so much he wanted to tell her. How he'd miss her, how he'd try to win, how he'd try and do well to make her proud of him. How he'd stay loyal to his District- and family.

But his sister's embrace said it all for him. They sat down on the sofa together, her gently stroking his curly black hair.

"If I know you, Morgan James Eltek," she chuckled weakly. "And I do- you've got a plan in your head."

He smiled into her shoulder. "Naturally."

She patted him fondly. "The other tributes won't know what's hit them."

He shrugged. "Well, my District partner might."

"So you're thinking of taking on little Specs?"

"Shayen? Possibly. It makes sense. You know her?"

"Vaguely."

"What's she like?"

Mary-Ann frowned, as if trying to remember something. "Very shy. Bit like a mouse really. Doesn't open up to many people, but give her time. Because like many mice, there are brilliant scarlet feathers hidden under grey fur."

They sat quietly for a little while longer. It was Mary-Ann who broke the silence. "I don't know what you plan on doing with it, but you'll need your wire."

She drew out from her sleeve a short length of wire. It was thin, almost soft from being twisted and reshaped over the years. It could only fit around his wrist once, but it was precious. That wire had seen the Dark Days, seen the Rebellions and the death and suffering. It was at least 200 years old. The world of Panem had changed so much, but still it looked the same as the rolls and canisters of wire freshly sold. It alone had not changed.

"Thank you, sister," he told her. " It'll be just what I need."

**Morgan: old wire, (sort of) family heirloom**

* * *

Juan looked up at Garcia, eyes wide.

¿A dónde vas, Garcia?"

"OI!" Platinum barked at his son. "None of that foreign stuff!"

"Don't you start on him!" Garcia's mother snapped.

"Well excuse _me _for not wanting our son to get shot for being a foreigner! You-" He pointed aggressively at Garcia, who shrank back instinctively, frightened of being hit. "You keep your mouth shut in the Games if you know what's good for you! You've got to keep it up. You have to be every inch one of us! You've got to leave everything behind now. If you win, you'll never be able to be anything other than 100% District 2. None of your language, your culture or your other family can remain if you want to live. You have to live a lie, understand? Be born in District 2, raised and trained in District 2. Be my daughter if you have to!"

She glared at him fiercely.

"Like hell I will."

He strode over to her and shook her hard, her teeth rattled in her head.

"Get this through your selfish head." He said, enunciating every word. "Because if you say anything suspicious, a word out of line, you'll be the death of us. And if your _stupidity _kills your mother, or kills _my _son, then trust me, nothing your mother can say will stop me from going into that arena and killing you myself!"_  
_

Isabella gave a little scream; and Lucas yelled : "Dad!" But Garcia simply held her stepfather's gaze.

"I can see why nobody wants you as their mentor," she said sarcastically, trying not to let the fear in her voice show- which it inevitably did.

Strangely, Platinum didn't rise to the bait, but merely laughed as if to imply that that was not the least of it. "No, your impending demise does not interest me in the slightest. Mrs. Insy will be mentoring you. I trust you will show her every repsect, as you show me. "

"What?" Garcia was beside herself. "That is _so _unfair!"

"Why?" chipped in Garcia's mother, frowning in confusion. "She's a focussed and determined lady. Why would she not serve well as a mentor?"

"She's Bif's mother! She'll obviously want him to win over me!"

"She can't mistreat you. That's illegal."

"But she can ignore me!"

Platinum shrugged. "Mentors are overrated, anyway. There's little she can do to stop you in the arena. Oh, and if I were you, kill the Insy boy. His bitch of a mother needs taking down a peg or two, in my opinion.

Garcia folded her arms and huffed.

"I'm not your slave. Kill him yourself if you want him dead." An idea dawned on her. "That's it." she said, her position giving her confidence. "See?_You _can't tell me what to do any more. I will do exactly what I want, I will win and when I get home, I refuse to share a house with you. I don't even want to see you once I win. And I won't let you tell Mom what to do either."

Platinum's eyes narrowed.

"_If _you win."

"Oh, I will win."

**Garcia: Artificial rose barrette**

* * *

"Well done, Bif. Good reapings. Remember, first impressions matter, especially in the Capitol. Just keep being every bit as menacing as you were at the Reaping, OK?"

Bif nodded. Those, at least, were instructions he could understand. "OK."

"Remember: no-one can dare presume themselves your equal. Because only _you _are the next Insy victor."

"What about my District partner?"

"Garcia? She's just another tribute. I wouldn't lose any sleep over her if I were you."

"Wasn't gonna."

"That's my boy. Oh and if at any point you don't know what to do- just kill someone, OK?"

"OK."

"We love you son. Remember, go for the weak people first, 'cause they're easy-"

"How do I know who's weak?"

"Generally those who get low scores. If they're young or small, they're also the ones to go for. But if you do get the chance to take out bigger competition- go for it. Your biggest competition will be mainly 1 and 4, but avoid killing them until you don't need them any more- you'll know this when there is nobody else left to kill. So pick off the outlying district tributes- they are never trained for the Games, they can't possibly beat you, then upgrade to tougher kills. Weapons are your priority; but we'll make sure you don't run out of supplies. Got all that?"

"I think so."

"Good luck son. We've trained you well. Fight to the death, OK?"

"Yeah. To the death."

**Bif: Stone pentimt (I think it means pendant. But I'm not sure.)**

* * *

"Well well well. Our treasure is Reaped for the Hunger Games."

Velvet's reply came smoother than she expected. "If I am so treasured, why am I treated like I'm worthless?"

Silver's reply was even smoother. "Not all is gold that glitters, my dear. We learned that with your mother, like mother like daughter we learned that with you."

"We?"

Satin chipped in. "We."

Velvet looked her grandfather directly in the eye. "Glitter or not, I will win the Games and there is nothing you can do legally to stop me."

Silver looked only amused. "Will you now? Keep telling yourself that, my dear."

"I am capable of more than you would think."

"Capable of killing, then? You? Who shrinks back at the sight of blood?"

"I am what you have trained me to be. Made me. Clos too."

"Then prove it. Prove yourself where your mother failed us. Because Mayor or not, I will not use my influence to save you until you prove yourself worthy of my time."

Velvet's laugh was mirthless. "Of course not. You're the President's favourite out of all the Mayors, but why should that help anyone here but you?"

"Exactly. Sentimental fools hold little value. I shall not consider you until you prove yourself and your skill to me."

"And how exactly am I supposed to do that?"

"Through murder."

**Velvet: n/a**

* * *

"Guess I don't need to look surprised, do I?"

"Of course not. You know a victor when you see one."

Aldarion grinned. "Sure I do. Gah, it'll be so awesome."

Calion leaned back, completely at ease. "I know. Ugh, I wish I didn't have to wait so long. I don't see how training's going to help, I know everything I need to know. I just want to get in the arena already!"

Aldarion looked as if he could barely contain his excitement. "Just one week- then the Games begin for real!"

"And then another week- and they're all over."

"Gah, the time will fly. Especially if there's lots of killing people."

"Of course there's lots of killing people, thicko. It's the Hunger Games. Duh."

"I know. But make sure you get lots of kills before all the good ones are gone. Lots of other Careers will want to kill too."

Calion laughed, his face mocking. "Pfft, how pathetic. Hehe, I'll bet I'll be killing all the people who want to kill people. Maybe even kill them while they're killing."

"A serial killer killer. Nice."

"Totally my strategy."

"Got a token?"

"A _token_?" The look Calion gave Aldarion was pitying. "Per-lease. Tokens are for sad kids who won't get home. I don't need a token 'cause I'm going home!"

"Aw yeah!"

**Calion: n/a (yeah... he's too cool)**

* * *

"Am I excited or am I EXCITED!" gushed Essta, the larger-than-life TV personality and the Caesar Flickerman of her generation as well as patron of Toblerone, Angry Birds- and moustaches.

"It's time for the Reaping Rundowns! Which means... in a week it's time for the HUNGER GAMES! ERMAHGERD!" She had a minor meltdown, pulling numerous derp faces and flapping her hands like a cross between a seal and an albatross on speed. She had managed to keep relatively serious in the interview in Chapter Two, but the approaching Hunger Games was a source of almost hysterical excitement in the Capitol and Essta was no exception.

"So we kick off our Reapings in District One! And what a pair we have too! This year's female tribute is none other than Velvet Marble- granddaughter of District One's Mayor, no less!The first Reaped tribute from District One in years! Gah, can't wait to see what her stylists will do with that fantastic red hair! Her District partner is Calion Pharazon- OMG, did he just kill someone? Awesome! Well, no prizes for guessing what _he'll _be doing in the arena! There's nothing like a smoking hot Career to brighten your day! Looks like these two would make very _expensive _victors,"

She winked suggestively at the camera. "Wink wink nudge nudge say no more say no more. Which brings us swiftly on to District Two. They've been doing pretty well in the last few Games, so let's have a look on their tributes for this year!

"Garcia Franchez is a _feisty _little madam- she's certainly giving those Peacekeepers a run for their money! And in true family fashion, Bif Insy has volunteered for the Games! Of course, we all remember the heart-stopping Games that made his parents victors- OMG, those fight scenes were, in a word: epic. But will Bif be the next Insy victor? Only time will tell!

"District Three's tributes this year are nerd chic par excellence! Shayen Romach, another tribute with fabulous red hair- take note Capitol fashionistas, red is _the _hair colour this year! Morgan has the most gorgeous blue eyes- aren't they cute together? I am so totally shipping them. Canon or not. Can't wait to see what geeky shenanigans _they _get up to."

She blinked, as if hearing something that surprised her. "Ooh, you cheeky things! District Four has two promising tributes in Charlotte Stillwater and Damian Helmac. Just look at that dark Byronic look. That just screams class. Charlotte shows a lot of promise- a volunteer! Four hasn't had many of those for some time. What secrets lie behind those beautiful eyes? We shall see!

"Hmm, honesty seems to be an issue in District Five this year. Iresse Nolofinwean certainly knows how to speak _her _mind! Ah, kids today. Xavier Holendo seems to have other ideas- getting someone else to pretend to be you? Good one, Xavier old sport!"

She threw her head back and laughed, her teeth sparkling.

"Our District Six tributes are very mysterious- Alwilda Brooks will not be appearing on our screens until she arrives in the Capitol so head on down to Station Six on Tuesday to catch your first glimpse of District Six's mystery lady! And another volunteer steps up for the Games- Capillo Ceritules! What does our red-eyed rogue have in mind? We have yet to find out!"

"District Seven has a traditional twist this year, with two budding young sports with- _interesting _names. Let's see if Virginia Roberts is as _imaginative _as her name! Savan Walder. Savan Walder! _So _cute- I mean, who could kill that face? Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth! But does the little cherub have fight in him yet? Let's hope so!"

"And... it's drama in District Eight! Yes, breaking news, Jenny Lin is _definitely _pregnant. Can't wait to hear her side of the story!"

Up on the screen behind her, there was a close up of Aden's children tugging at their carer's skirts.

_"Will he come back in time for dinner?"_

Essta virtually melted at the scene. "Isn't that _adorable? _Let's play it again!"

_"Will he come back in time for dinner?"_

"That is the cutest thing ever! So, which one of our budding families will keep its parent? I can't wait to find out! One thing is certain- the odds are not in their favour!"

"Ooh, tension in District Nine- well, isn't there always? Looks like Lynna Wheat and Matthew Sower can't wait to kill each other! And neither can we! Better keep an eye on them though- because if there's one thing you can guarantee in a District Nine tribute- it's cunning!"

"Our female tribute from District Ten is Sabella Dyson- wait, Dyson?" She pretended to look surprised. "Doesn't that sound familiar? And that's because it is! A Dyson damsel was Reaped in the 160th Hunger Games- and you know what they say- like mother, like daughter! Let's hope that Sabella doesn't meet her mother's _heartbreaking _fate- because the odds are not in family favour this year! Oh and her District partner is Nicholas Spring-Stone. He's cute."

"The drama continues all the way through our double-digit districts with a volunteer from District 11: Coriander Flair! Mmm, I love coriander. Makes amazing gravy. Will Coriander spice the Games up or what? Jathan Lane takes the stage with- well, flair! These two look like the charismatic contenders they are."

"And District 12- everyone's favourite poor people! A very appealing display of calmness from both Anita Perkins and Sadiki Oatheball- but do these tributes have fire?"

Her eyes widened as she realised the implications of what she had said. "I mean, spirit. Not fire. Not fire at all." She laughed weakly. "Anyway, stay tuned for more Hunger Games- and, to all our fortunate and unfortunate tributes this year- may the odds be ever in your favour!"

* * *

**AN. I borrowed the line about serial killer killers from the Seven Psychopaths movie.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Yeah**,** when I said that the finale was planned... well I changed my mind since. I WAS sure what happened in the finale and who was victor, but then I came to an epiphany.**

**The finale sucked.**

**So, now I have certainly decided (as in set-in-stone-and-not-changing-it-decided) the deaths of 21 tributes. Which leaves me at the final three. Of the final three, I have two choices for victor. And they are pretty well matched, if I say so myself.**

**So yeah. There is still hope, for your tributes. (Well, if they are one of the last two tributes)**

District One

"Hmm... let me see... red hair, outcast from the aristocracy... you must be a Weasley!"

"..."

Velvet wasn't sure whether to laugh at Calion's comment or roll her eyes. Her serious nature would have called for the latter, but this Calion had shown by his ready willingness to kill for little to no reason that he was the kind of person she needed to humour if she was to keep out of his way- and stay alive as long as possible.

She shrugged, as if his comment was neither here nor there. "Maybe." She sat up slightly straighter in her armchair, while he flopped onto the sofa.

Jean, their mentor, strode through purposefully. She made no acknowledgement of Velvet, but she had barely had to turn her head to guess what Calion was doing.

"Feet _off _the table, Calion Pharazon."

Calion scowled at her and moved them off, ruffling his hair with irritation. "Feet off the coffee table today, feet off the corpse tomorrow," he muttered as if to himself, but oddly enough with the full understanding that Velvet could hear him.

The door had barely slid shut behind Jean before Calion turned back to the solemn Velvet, as if he was seeing her for the first time, his face a picture of mild curiosity.

"So how long are you planning on living for?" he asked conversationally.

She frowned at him. "Umm... the rest of my life. Like, by winning the Games."

"Winning the Games?" Calion looked at her with mock surprise, as if she had said something fascinating. "Good luck with that."

Her frown didn't leave her face. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Calion grinned at her. "Whatever you want it to."

She got up suddenly and walked over to the window. "I don't need luck," she said boldly.

Calion snorted derisively. "Admit it. You do."

"I would if I was idiotic enough to pick _you _as an ally. But I'm afraid you'll find that unfortunately your district partner's not a bimbo. So I'm not having you in an alliance with me."

"In your dreams, princess" he said mockingly. "And another thing you'll need that luck for? Getting into the Career pack, 'cause there's no way I'm letting you join."

"Forget it. I'm not planning on babying any of your precious Careers."

"Babying? I think you'll find we do a lot better than that. Or we will do, with me as leader. And do me a favour, the less time you spend on TV dishonouring our District, the better."

"Dishonouring? You're a fine one to talk!"

"And you're a fine one when you don't." He winked at her, not at all intimidated by their snappy exchange and left the room.

* * *

District Two

"Garcia"

Bif's mother embraced her, but Garcia did not return the gesture. She was still angry -and frightened, from confronting Platinum for what she hoped would be the last time.

_Yes. Maybe certainly the last time. She might die. _

No, she mustn't think like that. She'd be fine. It would just be like the night they fled from 13 all over again. She had survived that, hadn't she? So why shouldn't she live this time?

Bif's father clapped Bif on the back. "Volunteering is the best way to start your career in the Games. So you-" he pointed to Garcia. "Have a lot to live up to."

She shrugged, as if she didn't care in the slightest. "Whatever. We'll get into the pack regardless of whether we volunteer or not."

"Don't you whatever me. Volunteering gives you an edge before you even get to the Capitol in terms of being noticed- _and _getting sponsors. It shows confidence and it shows determination."

"And stupidity," Garcia replied dryly.

"Oh, I shouldn't have expected _you _to understand. From the way you behaved at the Reaping, you couldn't have made it clearer that you don't want to be a tribute."

"Yeah, that's because I'm not pathetic enough to want all that stupid glory stuff over staying alive!"

"Well you'll have to change that plan!" Bif's father sighed in frustration. "I say you'll be lucky to get into any alliance, let alone the Careers. If I was in the Games, _I _wouldn't let you in."

"You forget, I've been trained just as well as Bif has!"

"For how many years? Five? Bif's been trained since he could walk!" Bif's father puffed himself up with pride. "By the best Panem has."

"Well, I didn't slack off half the time!"

"I don't slack!" Garcia and Bif's father jumped. They had been so busy arguing they had forgotten about the very person they had been talking about. Bif scowled at Garcia and stomped out of the room, muttering something under his breath about killing. Bif's father rolled his eyes and nodded at his wife. "See if you can try and talk some sense into her."

* * *

District Three

Morgan darted a quick side glance at Shayen, who was sitting next to him. Her long curls hung over her hunched shoulders, almost obscuring her blank face from view, which rested on her hands, her elbows on her knees. She showed no sign of moving.

Slowly, Morgan edged a fraction closer. When she did not respond, he edged another, even smaller fraction closer.

Suddenly she looked up and he froze mid-shuffle.

"Can I help?" she looked weary, almost old.

He cleared his throat. "I thought it would be most prudent to start discussing strategy now."

"Are you really that keen to enter the Games?" she said witheringly, harsher than she meant. She was surprised at her boldness, usually she would have just preferred to say nothing.

"Not at all. But it would be best to make key decisions now, when we still have time before the Games begin. It is foolhardy to leave planning to the last minute. Best to decide now, when we are calm enough to think and have a detached viewpoint that will allow us to weigh up our options."

Shayen sat up a little straighter and looked at him curiously. There was something in the measured, intelligent tone of his voice that drew her to him.

"Go on."

"I've been thinking-"

Then Shayen was struck by the sudden urge to tease him.

"Don't you always?" Her lips twisted with mirth.

He laughed at that. "A keen observation," he admitted with a grin. "I have been thinking of something which might prove to be useful."

"What is it?"

"A plan. An idea for a plan, an invention of sorts."

She leaned forward. Now this was getting interesting.

"Will you tell me?"

He blinked, uncertain at first and then he seemed sure of what he intended. "Possibly. But I have to be able to know that we can work together, in confidence."

She wasn't sure what he meant, but her confusion lasted for less than a second. "As allies?"

His gaze was direct. "I think that would be wisest," he said after a while. "After all, it is in our best interests, coming from the same District, to ensure each other's survival. That way we are more likely to have a District Three winner, which would bring mutual benefit to both our families." He took a deep breath. "Also, your help would be of great value in the technical orchestration of my plan."

Shayen thought about it briefly, twisting a strand of hair around a finger. "I agree. It is logical. I hope that we will work well as a team."

Morgan beamed and began to explain.

"What I have in mind, is a tracking device," he fought to keep enthusiasm from taking over his voice too much. It was a rather morbid context, after all. "Every tribute has their tracker, right? Now, I have come to the logical conclusion that our locations are recorded by the Gamemakers in relation to our distance from the Cornucopia. After all, what better way to track someone's route than from where they started? And we all start at the Cornucopia at the beginning. Therefore I have deduced that in order to recreate the tracking device that the Gamemakers use, we shall find vital parts underneath the pedestals of the Cornucopia. With these parts and a few others, we should be able to track our enemies and turn circumstance to our advantage!"

"What do you mean, 'a few others'?"

"Well... there are some parts that we won't be able to get from pedestals." Morgan looked sheepish.

"Then how are we going to get those parts?"

"That is yet to be, uh, confirmed."

"It's a c**p plan," she said bluntly.

"It's the only one I've got."

* * *

District Four

"Do you think we should join the Careers?"

Damian shrugged in answer to Charlotte's question. "Does it matter? We'll probably both die."

As a volunteer, Charlotte felt slightly rattled at the comment. "Joining the Careers means we will be more likely to survive."

"But there can only be one victor," he pointed out the obvious. "So only one of us can live, if either of us manages to make it at all."

"So you are just going to give up?" Her eyes searched his face. He remained inscrutable. "If you give up, then you just confirm what you've just said. If you give up, you'll always be dogged by the doubt of what could have been if you had tried."

Damian could not deny the truth behind her words.

"What has this got to do with joining the Careers?"

"They have the weapons, the supplies and the sponsors. Overall, the upper hand. And you know what they say..." her voice tailed off.

"What?"

"Keep your friends close, your enemies closer."

"I bet our enemies will be close anyway. Since the Games are only for a week, the Capitol will probably fork out for some s**t-small arena."

"Then the more allies, the better. The Careers are a formidable group and usually a large one. It makes sense, OK?"

"OK. But if I were you, I wouldn't enter the Careers alone."

"Then join me. The Careers will take us both more seriously if we join as a pair. Then we can watch each other's back, right?"

Damian thought of Nep, the little team they had. He wanted to get home to Nep, even though it felt so unlikely that he would ever feel his little brother's hand in his ever again.

"Careers it is then. They'd better take us on."

* * *

District Five

Xavier grunted at Iresse. She grunted back and helped herself to blancmange. The two hadn't actually spoken to each other in anything resembling English, but Iresse, distant and proud as she was, found grudging respect forming for the boy. He had shown as little interest in making polite conversation as she had, which made for a smoother journey. He understand just as well as she did that only one of them could live, at best. What was the point in getting to know each other? They both knew the other to be a solitary person, showing no interest in alliances, so why talk?

Maybe this boy was smarter than he looked. Maybe.

* * *

District Six

"Alwilda, this is Capillo. Do you want to say hello?"

Capillo turned and looked at the small girl standing in the doorway. He blushed, as she was only dressed in a bathrobe and had clearly just stepped out of the shower, judging from the way her hair stuck to her face and the raw pinkness of her skin. She, however, showed no signs of self-consciousness at her lack of clothing.

Awkwardly, he shuffled forward and held out his hand. Quick as a flash, Daisy punched him on the nose. He staggered back, blood trickling into his mouth. The Escort screamed and scolded her, but he shrugged. He really didn't care about anything any more.

"It's OK," He said, turning to face the Escort. "I guess she just likes her personal space"

He turned to face forward and jumped, as Daisy had appeared from nowhere and was now standing right in front of him, or rather almost standing _on _him, the knot of her bathrobe digging into his stomach, peering up into his face as if it were a telescope. "Or... maybe not," he changed his mind.

By way of apology, Daisy wiped off the blood from his nose with her sleeve. "Thanks" he whispered.

Now that he could see her up close, she wasn't bad-looking. Her hair was a very pale shade of brown and it looked as if it couldn't decide whether to be straight or wavy. Long eyelashes curled over large cheekbones, framing eyes that looked as if they had seen too much. She would have looked thoroughly normal, if a little unkempt, were it not for the way her grey eyes seemed to wander, lose focus or stare unblinkingly.

Suddenly she turned away from him and marched over to the door. Capillo winced as she pulled the handle off, the wood cracking and splintering. He had struggled to even open the door, she had broken it with ease. Seemingly unaware of Capillo's shock or of the damage to the door, Daisy sat down on the floor, twirling the metal door handle around and around in her fingers.

Curious, he sat down next to her. She was certainly very odd, but at least she wasn't squealing over the Hunger Games, which already made her more tolerable than both his parents.

"So, um, Alwilda-"

"Daisy" she said. It was the first time he had heard her say anything. Her rough voice seemed to drift, as if she was out of practice in speaking and she tended to emphasise on different syllables which made her speech strange.

"What?"

"Daisy."

"Is that your name?"

"I like... daisies."

"Oh cool." He thought about daisies, about whether he liked them. Come to think of it, he had never really looked at them before with anything more than a passing glance.

"um, I'm Capillo," he reminded her. Judging from her initial reaction to him, he guessed that she hadn't really clocked who he was.

"Do you like..."

"Capillo? I guess. Pillows are nice things. But I guess what I'd really like-" he stopped, uncertain whether or not to tell her. She didn't ask him to finish his sentence, but merely continued to turn the handle in her hands.

"I guess I'd really like- well, to be liked."

Daisy blinked. "I... can like... you."

He sighed. "I just don't know how to do it. I've been told that if you win the Hunger Games, everyone will like you. But I don't know how." He thought of his parents and the sense of emptiness returned.

Daisy shuffled and stood up. She wondered (in every literal sense of the word) into a different train car and came back, holding a glass vase filled with long stemmed daisy flowers. Ignoring the way Capillo flinched, she let go of the vase deliberately and picked the flowers out of the shattered glass and puddle on the floor. Fingers fumbling she wove the stems into a rough wreath shape and standing over Capillo, placed it on his head like a crown.

"Now you... win." she said.

"Thank you" he whispered, genuinely touched. "But I don't know if that's enough."

The sad thing was, he thought later on, was that she had made more effort to get to know him in two hours than his parents had in all his life.

* * *

District Seven

For what felt like the umpteenth time that day, Savan burst into tears. Virginia sighed. Why did she have to get paired with the mopey kid? He hadn't even bothered to say hello to her. He certainly wasn't like her brothers. They were the people she wanted with her right now.

"Look, crying isn't going to help you," she said firmly. "In fact, it'll probably make things worse."

Savan looked up at her, red-eyed, his cheeks shiny with tears. Feeling slightly guilty, Virginia gave him a brief hug.

"Here have a pastry," she said hurriedly, pushing it into his hands.

"Thanks!" Savan looked slightly more cheerful- or slightly less miserable. "Don't you want it?"

"No." Delicious as all the food it looked, it just made her think of Emma, about where she would get her food from now. The boy she was with kind of reminded her of Emma. Something about the way he looked around, bright-eyed and childish. Well he would, if he switched off the waterworks.

"I don't want to go!" He burst into tears again and the little choking sounds tugged at Virginia's conscience. It wasn't fair of her to blame him. She walked over and gave him another hug.

"Look, you aren't the only one who's going. I am too," saying it aloud made it worse and she hugged him tighter.

"Can I stay with you?" he whispered, like a child appealing to his parents at night after a bad dream. "I don't want to be on my own."

_Come to think of it_ thought Virginia. _I don't want to either. _After all, all her nightmares about being in the arena were nightmares in which she was also alone in the arena, with no allies. And this kid was what- twelve? Thirteen max? He was the last person she'd expect to be capable of killing anything, let alone a tribute. He was innocent, and he was from home. For now, that was enough.

"Fine. We'll stick together." She gave him a gentle poke. "But you're doing what I tell you, kay?"

"Why?" He said almost indignantly.

"Just 'cause. I'm older."

"So? That doesn't make sense."

"Who said the Hunger Games had to make sense? Those look-at-fab-hairdo-but-totally-ignore-the-fact-I-l ike-watching-kids-die Capitolites don't want a show that makes sense. And those behold-my-awesomeness-'cause-I-can-push-buttons Gamemakers don't care either."

"Now that makes sense."

"Of course it does. Now, where's our mentor..."

* * *

District Eight

Jenny walked carefully around the room at an angle. Aden sighed.

"You know, there's no need to hide it. I know a pregnant woman when I see one." _Although _he thought _you and are barely adults. Pregnant girl more like. What the hell are you doing in a fight to the death?_

Jenny blushed. "I'm not a slut," she said hurriedly.

"Didn't say you were." Aden began to peel an orange, but then gave up halfway through and put it down. He didn't feel like eating either.

"Yeah, but other people might. If I live long enough to hear them." Jenny forced herself not to cry.

"Well, at least you know that you won't be alone. They'll probably say something along those lines about me." Aden sighed again and sat opposite her, head in hands.

"You have kids," Jenny said wistfully.

"I do. Hunter and Logan." Their faces came to the forefront of his mind at the mention of their names. Bright, happy faces.

"What's it like?" Jenny whispered, almost in a dream, an undeniable note of longing in her voice. "To hold your little boy's hand? To brush your little girl's hair? What's it like to hold them and promise them that you'll never let anything hurt them?"

Aden paused before he spoke, his mind far off.

"It's like nothing in the world."

Jenny gripped the handle of her chair tighter with worry.

"I'll be your ally," Aden promised. "We'll stick together, I'll do my best to keep you safe- and your baby."

Jenny opened her mouth to thank him, but at that moment the door opened and both turned to look.

A woman stood in the doorway, but not their mentor, Felt. A Capitol woman, judging from her mint green suit. She looked at them, her heavy-lidded eyes lacking any appearance of recognition or compassion.

"The Tributes of District Eight, I presume?"

Jenny nodded. Aden narrowed his own eyes at her. There was something in her voice that was familiar- if distant. He was on his guard.

"My name is Rufilla. If you would please follow me?" Jenny got up, but Aden remained seated. Rufilla stared down at him.

"That was not a request, Aden Hanran."

**Behold... massive sub plot ahead. You have been warned. **

**So... alliances so far:**

**Shayen/Morgan**

**Charlotte/Damian **

**Daisy/Capillo**

**Virginia/Savan**

**Jenny/Aden**

**Top tip for survival in Panem: don't be called Damian, or Damien. I swear this is the third time I've seen a Damian/Damien in the Hunger Games. This is also the second time I have had a Damian/Damien in my SYOT.**


	14. Chapter 14

District Thirteen

"Citizens Assemble!"

The day began as every day in post-revolutionary District 13 always had done. Silence, an order; and a screech of feedback, fading out across the speakers that drooped from the roofs of every square concrete uniform block in the district. No more hiding underground. There was nowhere to run, no-one to run from.

There was nothing. Nothing they could fear, nothing they could dream of. The world started and ended at the borders, the boundaries of where they lived and what they knew. The sky was a flat grey empty page on which there was no ink to write.

There was no writing anywhere, either. Signposts, advertisements, graffiti, all gone. Words were power; and power was for the few. Nothing could distinguish building from building just as nothing could distinguish between each of the sullen faces that looked out from them.

Just how the authorities liked it. Everybody looked the same after a while; and that made it so much easier. Families like Garcia's were everywhere. Her eyes, from so many different perspectives, scanned the square as people began to file into the open area in front of the District's ancient Justice Building, now home to the authority of 13- the Leader. The people shook their heads like her, breathing through her button nose.

But behind the eyes, the similarities stopped. Thinkers like the Franchez family were banned, their philosophies crushed by the ruling authorities, not caring if they smashed life with it.

All that was left was the Leader.

A round of canned applause buzzed through the speakers, but was not taken up by the crowd. It acted as the signal, the warning, that the Leader was about to come among them.

Nobody could say for sure what the Leader looked like. It was treason to even look him- or her, in the eye. To do so would be disrespectful on the highest level. All eyes turned to the floor, which came several foot closer when the whole group, acting as one, knelt down in the dust before their Leader, the arbiter of their lives who was at the same time a stranger to them.

All they could say for certain about their Leader was that they were a member of the omnipresent Coin family, the dynasty that had had hold of the District for so long they were virtually in the air the citizens breathed. Nobody knew how long the current Leader had even been in power. Obviously, the Coins were mortal and so the Leader had to die at some point, but when they did their deaths weren't even announced, power was simply handed on to the next Leader- whoever they were- and life continued on as if they had always been in power.

There was no resisting them, no opposing their rule anymore. For how could you assassinate someone if you didn't even know what they looked like? When everyone looked almost the same as everyone else? You could spend your life living next to a Coin and never even know. Rebellion was left to rot at the back of people's minds.

And if their secret police came at night, nobody could say where you had gone- or why.

"Let us offer up our tribute to our Leader!" That was the next signal. Faces devoid of emotion, dulled by the routine:

They removed their right hands.

There was a great _thud _as hundreds of prosthetic limbs were dropped, simultaneously and without ceremony onto the ground. In a great wave of movement, they raised their stumps to salute the Leader, their eyes still fixated on their shoes.

It was a time-honoured tradition, that at the age of eighteen every citizen would cut off their right hand without anaesthetic or similar medical assistance in order to wholly pledge their allegiance. "Let the Leader be your right hand!" The authorities proclaimed passionately. Every citizen must be incomplete, in every sense of the word, without the Leader.

Anyone who refused the act was a traitor, who thought more of their own selfish hearts than the State. It was this new tradition that had forced families like Garcia's out into Panem, like wildfire driving animals out of a forest- or into the gas chambers like sheep blindly led to slaughter. Either way suited the Coins.

It began as every assembly in the square always had. A chant, slow at first but rapidly gaining pace as it was taken up by the increasingly hysterical crowd, driven wild by the frenzied repetition.

"Long live the Leader! Long live the State! Down with Panem! Long live Unity!"

All they could think of was the chant. Traitors were brought forward, their crimes bellowed out but drowned by the sea of noise, before they were thrown to the crowd and snatched up by the hysteria, devoured by the almost ravenous bloodlust. Friends, neighbours, lovers, parents, children- all participated in the dismembering of the accused, all familiarity- and screaming, drowned out still further by the continual chanting.

When the bloodshed was over, the pieces disposed of, they picked up their hands, re-attached them and went about their daily business as if nothing had happened.

Maybe nothing had really happened, to them.


	15. Chapter 15

Jenny let out a deep breath that she hadn't even realised she'd been holding. She guided herself through the corridor with the help of the rail along the wall, slightly disorientated from walking in the opposite direction to the train's movement. The woman called Rufilla had not said a word since she had summoned them and showed no signs of offering an explanation of what she was doing there and where she was leading them.

Aden bit his lip nervously, trying to place where he had heard the woman's voice before. It was distant in his mind, distorted and unclear yet very direct. He shuddered.

They had reached the end of the train, judging by the fact that the door that Rufilla faced was at the end of the corridor, all other doors on their left, windows on their right. The smooth, perfect sheen of the door, which had neither handle nor keyhole, stood out from the train walls like a rectangular, unblinking eye that kept watching them.

Rufilla placed a single slim finger on a pad beside this eye and the door vanished, as if the eye had blinked.

"In here, please." She stood in the doorway and ushered Jenny through, Aden following reluctantly.

Darkness shrouded them inside, the only light beamed from a flickering Capitol seal on a screen set into the wall. It illuminated a simple wooden chair bolted to the floor, several paces from the screen.

Jenny looked to Aden for reassurance, but his face was set, his eyes staring unblinking at the seal which seemed to stare back with equal resolution.

There were a few seconds of fanfare and the Capitol seal faded to reveal the stage on which the tributes' interviews took place every year. Jenny saw Aden' gaze harden, his hands balling into fists, knuckles white with anger.

A short, plump woman sat in the interviewer's chair. Although she projected an air of ease, one curvy leg crossed over the other, kitten heel tapping idly on the floor, her back was as straight as a lightning conductor; bringing her ample bust into pointedly sharp relief. A shock of white blond curls, she lifted her head at the sound of the fanfare and beamed at Aden and Jenny as if they were her dearest friends in all the world. Dimples dancing in her round face, the warmth in her smile took Jenny by surprise, but Aden was anything but relaxed by the sight of it. The smile did not quite reach her eyes; and Aden couldn't shake off the suspicion- the certainty in his mind, that behind that beautiful mask were lurking ugly intentions. As if all the goodness in her had risen to the surface and condensed there, leaving a core of pure evil. As if behind the innocent wide blue eyes a monster prowled without rest, biding time, waiting to strike.

She extended her arms wide in welcome and he instinctively shrank back. Her expression remained carefully painted kind, but the dark wine red that glossed her lips and the long nails on her short hands made him think of a predator that had just been disturbed while feasting on a carrion.

She scrutinised them briefly as if about to purchase them, smile still fixed in place, eyes flickering over them but betraying no thought. Her gaze wandered off the two of them and settled on Rufilla. If it was possible, her smile broadened.

"Rufie darling, the theatrics really were not necessary. This is, after all, off the record."

"One likes one's pomp and circumstance, Immy," Rufilla replied grandly and the President of Panem gave a short laugh.

"Then, by all means, have it. My concern was merely not to mislead our guests into thinking this a formal occasion."

"If you wanted to intimidate us," Aden said through gritted teeth "I'd have thought that being thrown in this dark room with Capitol presence and therefore no explanation would be considered enough-" he took a deep breath, steeling himself for what he was about to say. "But I suppose you must play games, so call my bluff."

Her eyes narrowed a fraction and she tilted her head slightly. Her curls parted to reveal a single long scar, heavily patched over with make-up, that stretched in a straight line from behind her ear to her collarbone.

"Intimidation is not the name of this game, Aden," she said finally. She opened her mouth again and paused, likely sentences forming in Aden's head and hanging ominously in the air like a rotting criminal. "-until you give me reason." she finished.

"You will find you can't intimidate me," Aden said with all the conviction he could muster.

"Let's not jump to conclusions, shall we? You-" her fingers curled into claws and then relaxed out again slowly, like she was feeling her way forward. "must wait your turn."

"I doubt introductions are necessary," Rufilla remarked dryly. Jenny jumped. She had almost forgotten that the assistant was there, esconsed in shadow.

"No, they know who I am," Rufilla and the President looked at each other conspiratorially, as if sharing a private joke whose punchline was private knowledge. "Don't you?" She said to Aden and Jenny.

Aden ran through in his head all of the names which the rebels had dubbed their enemy. Bitch was too mild, Irma Faer was no bitch. She was a She-Wolf, plain and simple, her claws poised to tear children to pieces and leave their stinking entrails to rot while she pursued again, hunted down another scent with murderous vengeance. The Vulture, always circling death, quick to profit in it. The Hawk, the predator whom all predators answered to. Bathory, after the ancient countess who was rumoured to bathe in the blood of virgins to remain eternally young. The Devil's Wife- until she had murdered her husband and assumed his title herself. Literally.

"President Faer," he said simply, deciding it to be the safest option. Somewhere at his side, he heard Jenny echo his words. Faer nodded approvingly.

"Jenny, you may be seated." She gesured to the chair, which Jenny almost collapsed into with relief. A feeling which vanished as quickly as it had arrived when she felt the arms of the chair, which were scarred with grooves that felt rather like they had been scratched into the wood by human nails.

"Rufie, please escort Aden out of the room. This is a matter for us women, do you not think? I want it to be wholly confidential. And as they say- ladies first."

Rufilla nodded and all but dragged Aden away from Jenny. He only had time for one last look at Jenny's tense, fearful face before the door sealed shut, the jaws of the room snapping up his district partner.

* * *

"Now, my dear. Let's get this little _problem_ sorted out-"

"My baby is not a problem," Jenny blurted out, before shrinking in her chair, wary of a harridan's retribution. But the President simply raised an eyebrow.

"I view it as a problem, I will deal with it as such."

Jenny's hand flew instinctively to where her child grew unaware. "You're going to kill my baby?!"

The President feigned a look of surprise at such a suggestion and held up her hands like she was halting traffic. "Do not give way to hysterics, Miss Lin. I never said anything of the sort. No, the life of your child is in your hands. I mean to offer you a choice."

Jenny was puzzled. Nobody had ever offered her a choice in something like this. "What- what do you mean?"

"I find that tasks are carried out more readily when they have been chosen. There is more than one option open to us. If you are comfortable with and capable of making your own decisions, you may take which ever one I offer you that suits you best. Shall I explain?"

Jenny gripped the arms of her chair tighter. She was beginning to see where the scratches had come from.

"Do."

"The Games must take place without a hitch. Your pregnancy is an example of such a hitch. It brings up memories of Katniss Everdeen, which in itself opens up a whole can of proverbial worms. There will be some who see it as a step too far. You see, we Capitol folk like to think we are better than our bloodthirsty ancestors, even if the Games are still very much a reality. If we disapprove of a pregnant tribute, we see ourselves as beings who have evolved since the era of the Mockingjay, beings who adhere more to that myth of civilisation." The President gave a snort of derision.

"But what does this have to do with me?"

"Everything, Miss Lin. Should you choose to have an abortion, which I can offer at the hands of our finest medics and which will mean you will be back on your feet and ready to fight in a matter of days."

Jenny dithered. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. "So- why isn't an abortion my only option, if it's all so handy for you?"

"My dear, we have not discussed payment yet."

"Payment?"

"Naturally. I would not offer you such a valuable arrangement unless there is something that I can get out of it. Smething of value to me."

Jenny's brow wrinkled in confusion.

"I can't possibly have enough money."

"I made no mention of money."

Something very heavy seemed to sink to the bottom of Jenny's stomach. She thought of all the desperate women in District Eight, so chained in poverty that they sold their hair to the wigmakers of the Capitol.

"My... hair?"

The President shook her head. "No, no. What I ask is an act. Should you accept an abortion, you will lose your dramatic value. You are more interesting to the audience with an unborn child. Without it, you are- well, nothing. Nothing that would make you stand out from the other eleven girls who will join you in your fate, not in my opinion anyhow. You must recover your dramatic value. The only way to do this is to kill your district partner."

"Kill Aden?!"

"Of course, you ninny! What other district partner do you have? He is a father. Just imagine the potential that has. You, the heartbroken bereaved mother, passionately jealous that he has the family life with children that you have been denied. In a fit of righteous rage, you murder him in the bloodbath before he has the chance to defend himself."

"He has kids! I can't do that."

"Fatherhood is no guarantee of virtue, my dear. Your husbands were fathers, didn't stop them being spineless cowards who saw no wrong in abandoning you and leaving you vulnerable to the world- and to me." She tutted. "I struggle to sympathize with someone who so far seems incapable of watching out for their own interests."

Jenny sat up a little straighter. Fear or no fear, this woman had no right to tell her so baldly what she perceived to be her character. "I'll have you know, I am capable of watching out for myself and my children. I was about to begin my life again and petition to have my children restored to me when I was Reaped."

Faer ignored her. "Your second option is to turn down the offer of abortion and accept its consequences."

"And that requires payment as well, doesn't it?" Jenny could not hide the bitter tone in her voice.

"Indeed. But this payment requires a little hard work on your part- something District people seem to be averse to. You must, essentially, be grateful."

"Grateful? For what?"

"By that, I mean grateful to be entering the Games. Tell us all what an honour it is for a simple District sl*t like you to be selected for the Games. How you can't believe how wonderful all the fame is. How much you love your fans. How you hope you will be worthy of victory and of being a mother to your child. Gush. It need not even be intelligent or thought-provoking gush. Just make the Capitol audience believe that you are a-OK about being a tribute. That will ease their guilt and make them feel like truly moral and empathetic beings and everything will blow over. Achieve that, and then only the Games remain as your obstacle."

"And if I fail?" The moment she had asked her question she wished she could withdraw it. But she could only await what the President had to say on the subject.

"Believe me, I will make it so that you will not dare fail me. Not unless you wish upon yourself and your family the fate that I would plan for them."

"N-"

"If you _dare_ fall short of your objective, then you have no hope from the moment you step off your pedestal. A pack of dogs have only my orders keeping them from satisfying their insatiable hunger- hunger for a certain someone's unborn flesh. Mere moments after witnessing your _unfortunate _demise, your mother and your daughter would stand in the Square of District Eight and with charges of treason receive a last gift from you- a bullet in the back of the neck."

Faer's voice increased in speed and she leaned forward as if she were about to bulldoze Jenny, but her tone remained as flat and detached as it had ever been. Satisfied with the visual effect of her verbal attack, she leaned back at ease.

"You will not fail me." It was a command and the only comfort, if comfort there was, was the certainty with which she spoke it.

Jenny gulped. She tried to think, screwing up her face in concentration, but panic pushed every thought around and around in her mind until everything was jumbled. Only one thing was certain. Keeping her child.

"Have you made your choice, my dear?" After the hideous threat she had just posed, the calm soothing tone in Faer's voice was more than a little disconcerting. But Jenny's mind was made up.

"Yes, I've made my _choice_, if that's what you call it. I'm keeping my baby. You and your legal system have already taken my first. I'll not make the same mistake again. I'm never letting my baby go. Never."

"In that case, wipe the sulky look off your face" Faer ordered. "Smile, if you know what's good for you. You have a Capitol to please."

"Don't I know it?" Jenny sighed to herself.

"You are dismissed. You are free to leave this room."

It was all Jenny could do not to race out of the room and ram the door down.

"One last thing before you go,"

Jenny froze.

"Send in Aden after you, please? I wish to have a little chat with him."


	16. Chapter 16

**This chapter might be... unpleasant. So if you don't fancy reading all of it, just skip to the bottom where there will *SPOILER* be spoilers just summarising what happened. **

**I am not a sadist.**

**I'm not a psychopath either. I just write characters who are *COUGH COUGH* Irma Faer *COUGH COUGH***

Shadows of trees crossed the corridor floor, running over Aden's knees as he sat cross-legged in the corner, just the way he had been taught in first grade. The sun was just beginning to set on this day, this nerve-wracking day as tense as a stretched spring. He had been largely ignored since he had been led here and had been waiting for some time, which felt even longer without way of measuring it but for the changing light. But he didn't dare leave the confines of the corridor, not even to the dining car to get some food. He had been told to wait here and he didn't dare push his captors to see how liberal their definition of 'here' was.

After mindlessly spotting patterns in the carpet; and with nothing better to do, Aden emptied the contents of his pockets and laid them all out on the floor in a line. A roll of string. A button, picked up after it had fallen off a shirt. Keys; for a front door that could be opened anyway if you pushed hard enough. An old receipt from the washerwoman, creamy with age, from when Colleen had had pneumonia and could barely make it from bed to floor and Aden had been busy with the rebels. Stubs from old tesserae slips, vouchers that had been dispensed during last year's food shortages in the District, the ink blurred from forgery. A Capitol propaganda leaflet from when he was a kid, cheerily entitled 'Dante Faer for President!' Aden stared blankly at the airbrushed commercial smile he was wearing, at the equally polished woman on his arm, more of a poltical accessory than a spouse. He looked to him like a remarkably cheerful man considering that the photo would have been taken only two years before this old Devil was found with a nail clumsily hammered into his skull and the contents of his accessory's head proven not to be air but something far more dangerous. Almost instinctively, he shredded the leaflet without even glancing at its regurgitated contents and kept tearing until the fake people on the cover were nothing more than smiling scraps on the floor.

Hastily sweeping up the pieces and depositing them into cracks where the carpet joined the walls, Aden spotted a packet of chewing gum. He never used the stuff personally, not seeing the use in handing over precious coins for what seemed to his mind nothing more than flavoured rubber. But he must have picked it up without thinking at the dining car.

He stretched it out and rolled it into little balls. It wasn't as good as modelling clay that kids at home made and sold for sweets in the playground, but it would do. Piling the balls into forearms and arms and calves and thighs and necks and navels, he began to make little models. Pinching the gum, he carefully flared out the thighs of one model to make a skirt. He peeled bits of gum off the little girl's head to make plaits, stretched out the legs of the man to make him tall. Gently but firmly with a fingernail, he scored lines in the little boy's head to make fine wavy hair.

He looked down at his work; and his chewing gum family smiled simply up at him.

The door at the other end of the corridor flashed open. Feet stomped fretfully up the corridor. Aden jumped, the little boy model fell from his fingers, the head knocked off and rolled away. He scrambled to his feet, his eyes catching the shine of tears on Jenny's face as she barged past him, hiccuping mournfully.

"Jenny?"

"She wants you next!" Jenny wailed over her shoulder.

"Who?"

"_Her!_"

Not for the first time that day, dregs of fear churned in his gut. There was only one _her _that Jenny could be referring to.

* * *

But what on earth did she want to see him for? He wasn't pregnant.

He pondered this for a moment and would have pondered longer were it not for Rufilla, who came to the doorway and beckoned him through. There was a satisfied glint in her eyes, like a selfish child who had just witnessed a childhood enemy receive a thorough telling-off. But they were not children and a thorough telling-off entailed threats of a far graver nature.

The dark room remained as ignorant of passing hours as it had before and still the atmosphere was as comfortable as that of a shark tank. The main resident shark was still visibly in control, with the quiet confidence of one for whom all had gone to plan and appearing increasingly to Aden like some bizarre hybrid between a Capitolite yummy mummy and Jack the Ripper. She held in her little fingers a piece of paper and was very slowly tearing it down the middle, each time into smaller and smaller pieces. Although she looked far away and did not acknowledge Aden's return, he was sure that she knew full well that he was watching her.

Having torn the page into nothing more than flecks of paper, she brushed the pieces off her knee and onto the floor. She leaned back in her chair and watched him.

"Take a seat, Aden," she said after a while.

"I think.. I'd rather stand," he replied, warily eyeing the chair he had been offered.

He felt the familiar coldness of a knife edge pressed against his back. Rufilla's voice curled around his ear and at the forced calm in her voice he felt the same sense of deja vu as he had before.

"The lady said, take- a- seat."

With visible reluctance, he slowly sank into the chair, his eyes never leaving the screen.

"What have you done to her?!" He gestured with his thumb at the door. Faer quirked an eyebrow questioningly.

"Done? I have done nothing."

"She was crying her eyes out!"

"I have little time for the pathetic hormone-induced hysterics of a mentally stunted teenager with enough water in her tear ducts to eternally fuel District Eleven's sprinklers."

"Then what did you say to her?"

"That is between myself and Miss Lin. Also strictly confidential, so please respect her privacy. You will not hear about it from me or from her, as you have no right to know."

"And you have no right to be so mean to her!"

Faer's eyes rolled like dark blue marbles in her head.

"Do please feel the need to foist your opinion on me," she retorted sarcastically. Aden's cheeks burned with frustration and his ears felt like they were roasting.

The President slapped the side of her head in mock realisation.

"But of course! How silly of me! Here we are, talking about such irrelevant things- you must be anxious to see your family."

Conscious of the need to play along, Aden nodded slowly.

Faer extended her arm towards the edge of the stage and there was a shuffling sound of stockinged feet. Colleen Hanran staggered on, bare feet slipping but she took no notice of them, constantly looking around, especially behind her back. She wore the same dress as the one she wore at the Reaping and she looked as if she hadn't eaten since. Her face was grey, dark shadows under her wandering eyes, her hair slightly dishevelled but otherwise untouched. She was still very much alive and Aden breathed an uneasy sigh, unsure whether to be concerned or relieved and finding he was a mixture of both.

"What have you done?" He repeated, but more out of suspicion than fear.

"Actually, nothing," was the response and for the first time in his life Aden heard honesty in her voice. "We offered her food, she wouldn't eat. We offered her a bath-" she wrinkled her nose at Colleen in disgust. "-Not entirely out of selflessness, I can assure you. She'd have none of it. The fool wouldn't even sleep. Just constantly asking about her children until it made you sick to death."

At the word 'children' Colleen's head snapped up, eyes wide.

"W-where's Aden?" she slurred drowsily, then much stronger and clearer: "_Where's my children?_"

She turned on Faer and moved rapidly, lifted her hands up to throttle her, but the President did not even step back. She smiled maliciously and whistled the sound of a whip cracking, chuckling as Colleen staggered back, snatching her arms away from Faer as if from a fire.

"Aden," she muttered to herself. "Aden."

"He's here, sweetie," Faer smiled fondly at the two of them in turn, placing her arm affectionately around Colleen's shoulders, if slightly awkwardly, for Faer was a head shorter. Colleen stiffened as if to play dead with a predator at the contact and looked as if she wanted nothing more than to be as far away from Faer as possible.

"Do you have anything to say, my dear?"

Colleen spotted him and made to move forward, but Faer's hand on her shoulder held her back, kept her in place.

"Aden?" she said uncertainly, as if trying to decide if the boy on the screen truly was her husband.

"Yes, it's me, Lena" the screen seemed to transfix Aden and he slid off of the chair and onto the floor.

Colleen took a deep, shuddering breath, as if struggling to contain herself. The look on her face was of pleading fading into despair.

"_Please_, Aden," she begged, her voice ragged. "Please, don't do anything stupid just-just do what they say, it makes everything so much easier on all of us Aden I don't know where the children they're somewhere around here I don't where they separated us the moment Peacekeepers came to the house after the Reaping-" she gasped for breath, her lower lip wobbled, her speech was slurring again and getting faster and faster as her panic heightened.

"I don't know what happened to the kids they wouldn't tell me they offered me food and water and sleep but I couldn't take it I'm so worried they're going to hurt me oh Aden please please don't make them angry you don't know what they're like when they're angry Aden I'm so frightened please just tell them everything Aden she _knows, _she knows everything she knows about the Rebellion and she knows about you and me and your Mom and Dad and she knows the names of all our friends in the rebels and I'm so worried and Aden- _Aden_"

"That's enough, my dear." Faer patted Colleen consolingly on the back. "Why don't you just go and have a nice lie d-"

"oh Aden I can't _tell _you the things she told me she told me everything I've ever done and all these- all these horrible things-" Colleen choked on her sobs and coughed loudly.

"That's enough, Colleen," Faer said gently, but there was an edge growing in her voice. "You don't need to say another word."

But Colleen was fast becoming hysterical and no subtlety of gesture or tone would be picked up on.

"Aden I promise I didn't hand anyone over but the thing is there's no point because she's the-"

"That's _enough!_" Faer bellowed into her ear. She pulled Colleen back, her nails digging into Colleen's shoulder, the red standing out on the fabric of her dress like bullet wounds. She grabbed Colleen's arm and the girl nearly toppled over from the shock. Colleen yelped in pain as Faer twisted her arm up behind her back, impervious to her pleadings.

"Stop please you're hurting!" Tears soaked her feet.

"Oh, I know," Faer said pleasantly. "And believe me, I can make it so much worse."

There was a snapping sound. Aden flinched as Colleen screamed, her arm now sticking out at a funny angle. Aden felt his own tingle.

"Your temporary silence would please me Colleen Hanran, failing that permanent silence works just as well," Faer smiled jovially at her victim before pushing her unceremoniously off of the stage.

"You didn't let me say goodbye" Aden's voice seemed to have shrunk to a hoarse whisper.

"What was that you said?"

"I might never see her again," Aden felt contempt and hurt joining the fear in his stomhac's maelstrom of emotions. "You didn't even let me say goodbye," he repeated more forcefully.

Faer looked at him with what would appear to be pity if not for the mocking curl of the lip.

"Your violin of self-pity could do with a good tuning," she remarked snidely. "It has gone quite hideously off-key from overuse."

She returned to her seat.

"Now," she began, with the same businesslike air as she had with Jenny. "I'm sure the appearance of your wife has made you question why you are here."

Deliberately avoiding anything to do with the Rebellion, Aden shrugged as if the Reaping had not been a matter of life and death.

"My name was on a slip picked out at the Reaping, I guess."

"You guessed incorrectly. You were Reaped regardless of the actual name on the slip drawn from the bowl. Your Escort was given notice three minutes before the Reaping was due to begin that your name was be read out."

She clicked her fingers and an Avox scuttled on with a sheaf of documents. "Hurry up girl, I haven't got all day," she snapped at the Avox who let out the faintest of whimpers before scuttling off again.

Aden opened his mouth to speak, confusion embedding itself in his face, but Faer cut him off. "Your next question is of course, why. I can inform you of that as well. Your Rebel Leader handed you over to me on multiple charges of disobedience and therefore as a threat to both the Rebellion and Panem."

"I-"

"Your offences include inappropriate interaction with your fellow rebels- laughter has no place on the battlefield, Aden. Reluctance to obey orders, questioning of such orders, empathy with your enemies that borders on fraternization with seditious comments: "'They're human too'" "'This has gone too far'" "'There is too much cruelty in this plan'". Lenience on rebels who disobey orders, empathy with such offenders, objection to thorough interrogation using torturous methods and critically, the neglect of your Rebel Leader. The final offence which spurred your Leader to hand you over was after you received a telephone call on the day of the Reaping from your Rebel Leader, which your wife allowed you not to answer and which prompted your comment: "'Our Leader is also cruel.'""

Faer folded the document briskly and looked hard at Aden, eyes stern.

"Please tell me you didn't expect these comments to pass without some retribution."

Aden glared back at her. "I'll speak my mind, thank you madam, in my home and in private."

"Private! You are a rebel, of course I had your house bugged."

Aden could feel his voice rising in volume but it was beyond his control. "Then why don't you stick me up on your gallows for all to see like your effing predecessor did my parents? Damn you, don't stretch it out, get it over with like you want to!" he spat every word at her, wishing he could replace it with gunfire.

Faer simply smiled at him as if he had said something marvellous and not as if she had just bargained with his life with Jenny.

"Because my dear, you and your fellow rebels are far more use to me alive than dead."

Aden felt thrown by the comment, but in his panicking mind things were, strangely, beginning to piece themselves together. The lack of progress the rebels had made in the last- well, fifty years. The dwindling number of casualties. The autocratic way the rebels were lead. The Capitol's reputation for cruelty. The lack of individual uprisings, the way protests and acts of rebellion And that voice...

"You do not know what your Rebel Leader looks like, do you?"

Despair shook his head for him.

"No. Because then if we got captured by the Capitol, we wouldn't be able to hand the Leaders over because we wouldn't know who they were."

"Indeed. But behind a mask of anonymity, who knows whose face could lurk?" Faer turned and smiled at the person next to him.

Aden's head turned very slowly, as if on creaking hinges, to face Rufilla.

The voice. That cold, detached, inhuman monotone that barked orders, deaf to mercy or pity. That voice that had invaded his home, that had been ever present since he was a boy, as familiar as the clothes on his back and the sheets on his bed. Always there, pushing in the background. Always there, the unnoticed evil.

A wave of anger and despair crashed over him, smashing and drowning all reason in the terrified spray.

"Sh*t!" Rufilla turned and fled as Aden lunged at her in his fury. Slightly unsteady in her high heels she hurried for the door and whirled around, sealing it shut just as he reached her. He yelled and banged at the door, not daring to look around as the only other person in the room with him- she may have been miles away but she could see and hear everything in the room so that solidified her presence in his mind.

"There's no escape," she said matter-of-factly. "Not now, not ever. You really thought that after the damage the Mockingjay caused, we would just let you all go home? Leave you alone as long as you fulfilled your quotas and sent us two brats a year for slaughter? You thought wrong. There is nothing in this world that cannot be corrupted by deceit. If there were the Dummy Games, why should there not be- a Dummy Rebellion to follow? All of Panem must be controlled by us. There is no other way for us to maintain power in the Capitol.

"You are a man without a master, Aden Hanran and that makes you vulnerable. You do not obey me as President, you do not obey me as a rebel. You are a liability that I cannot tolerate. I do not intend to kill you, that will not satisfy me. I do not want merely your life, I want your soul. Killing you brings no benefit to me. I chose you to enter the Games, you will do so just like every other tribute. I can allow you to win, should the odds be in your favour. But I will break you. I will mould you into what I want you to be, no matter how much it hurts. I will subdue you and I will make you mine. I will break you and it will be my pleasure to do so, to crush your stubborn bones to powder even as you scream." Once more, she leaned forward like a tiger preparing to pounce on wounded prey and Aden caught a glimpse of a monster. She blinked innocently and her calm, friendly smile returned.

"But death won't do it will it? Death will not break you. You are ready for it, you have been prepared to accept the chance of being killed since a young age. I must try a different tactic to tame you, to make you do what I want."

She rose and all traces of evil melted away, replaced by a warm playful demeanour. She clicked her fingers and the Avox returned, racing onto the stage, mindful of her last rebuke. "A bucket of water, to the brim"

She turned back to Aden, amusement tweaking her smile still higher. "You are a difficult one, aren't you?"

He licked his lips. His palms were sweaty with fear and he discreetly wiped them on his trousers. "I stand by what I believe in," he blurted out, not daring to look her in the eye.

"Of course you do," she replied levelly. "That is why this must be done."

The bucket was placed on the floor, water sloshing over and slopping around the base in puddles. Faer drew out a large red sweet wrapped in shiny cellophane and beckoned from offstage- Hunter.

He ran on, giddily childlike as ever and Aden could feel something in him give at the sight of his son. Gone were the messy overalls, the mud and the modelling clay. Hunter looked well fed and pampered, dressed in an impeccably clean playsuit, not a hint of mud or childish mischief in sight.

Faer beamed at him and laughed, stretching out her arms and embracing him, kissing him like a son, the two of them stuck perpetually in playtime in some twisted world.

She went down on her knees in order to look him in the eye. "Hello darling," she said, her voice brimming with affection and sickeningly convincing. "Oops!"

She dropped the candy into the bucket. "Silly me!" She laughed breathily. "I dropped it. Want a sweetie, darling? Just pull it out."

Hunter, charmed by this glamorous and generous new friend, leaned over the edge of the bucket, his little fingers moving to pick it up.

Aden realised what was going to happen seconds before it did.

"NO!"

Faer struck Hunter around the head. He stumbled; and she moved in for the kill. Her hand- or claw, Aden couldn't tell the difference anymore- closed around the back of his head, grabbing his head and pushing him into the bucket. He struggled, great gasps of air bubbling up to the surface, water flowing over the bucket. Faer's face was contorted with disgust, handling him like a dog, her sleeves rolled up, her head high, tossing curls that strayed across her face, intent on watching her prey for every second that she could savour. His limbs flailed like a fish caught on the end of the line, his boy's screams smothered and stifled, life draining away with each desperate bubble.

Aden couldn't remember when his scream had started, but it felt like it would never stop. He was stuck in a nest of thorns, unable to move and free himself without tearing his flesh to ribbons, but torturous not to move and to slowly drain away, bleed to death from the thorns that dragged closer and closer.

He was on his knees, repeatedly hitting the screen with increasing desperation, as if he could somehow drag his son out, pull him away from the wolf who had ensnared him and dragged him down to her hell. He couldn't stop the pain, he was as helpless as his son and burdened by the guilt that he had been just as naive. He begged, he pleaded, he made promises he couldn't even remember or make sense of. His jaw shook, he shook as the pain and the grief overtook him.

Slowly, the struggling grew weaker and the bubbles fewer, until with a feeble stirring, they stopped altogether.

Faer leaned back on her knees, breathing slowly, her face flushed and exhilarated. She hooked her finger around the strap of his playsuit and hoisted him out, her face a picture, a monument of disdain. Dismissively, she dropped him on the floor like dirty washing. He landed with a dismal flop, mouth lolling, eyes half-closed.

"Perhaps Jenny Lin should name her child the President's Remorse," Faer remarked, her mouth once again enjoying a joke. "Because it too may never exist."

"Get rid of that thing, will you?" she gestured to Aden's dead son. The Avox nodded, face fixed in an emotionless expression and carried Hunter away. A leg slipped from her grasp and swayed gently from the movement.

Composure regained, Faer returned once more to her seat. "Now that you are receptive to my command, know this,"

Aden shook his head, trying to clear the terrible sight from it. No. It had not happened. It could not have happened. Faer would surely attack him, not his son. Surely Hunter and Logan were safe, at least.

"I want your silence. Not a whisper of the Rebellion from you, either on screen or off. You are not a rebel, you are not anything other than Aden Hanran, tribute from District Eight. Your son died tragically in his sleep from a carbon monoxide leak in his bedroom, which was separate from your wife and daughter's as he was ill. You are inwardly and outwardly loyal."

"You'll _never _break me," Aden's teeth were gritted. He may as well say it, Hunter was dead and nothing could restore his boy to his arms. He may as well go down fighting.

The President simply stared at him, knowingly.

"I have already, haven't I?" Her voice was soft as poison, her eyes boring into his until he squeezed his own shut.

"But our deal is not closed," she continued, voice briskly detached. "I have to be certain that you will not fail me."

She beckoned her next piece onto the board- Logan.

Aden slammed his fist into his mouth in horror as his daughter climbed into the lap of his enemy and was embraced by a murderess, caressed by hands that had taken life so brutally.

"When's Daddy coming back?" Logan asked impatiently.

"Soon, my dear, soon."

"How soon is soon?" Logan persisted, as determined as Aden had ever known her.

"Please... don't..." his voice whispered like the wind through a draught, ever mournful and weary of being shut out.

"Remember, Aden," the President said teasingly. "I hold every child's life in Panem in my hands."

Her hands slowly began to close around Logan's throat, the blood red nails poised as if to shred the soft young flesh so tantalisingly close.

"Literally."

She feigned a short, sharp movement with Logan's neck and Aden screamed. She merely chuckled and stroked Logan's hair fondly.

"No, she has nothing to fear. She can hold our deal firmly in place. Your silence for her life. The loss of one equates to the loss of the other. I will keep her safely by my side. Should you die in the Games- and whether you do or don't is out of my hands, do not think I will even let her look away. She will watch; and she will learn. If you win, you may take her and your wife home. If you do not, they will stand behind your coffin on the train home. Do not think I am not capable of killing your children with any means I can and believe me when I say, I would not make her death quick."

The President tucked a strand of hair behind Logan's ear, kissing her gently before showing her off the stage. She turned back and pasted one last smile for Aden.

"Happy Hunger Games," she added as an after thought "and may the odds be _ever _in your favour."

* * *

**3) Hunter Hanran**

**Summary time!**

**Rufilla is Aden's Rebel Leader, the Rebels are run by the Capitol in order to prevent a successful uprising and to channel the anger in the Districts. Essentially, it is a sham.**

**The reason Aden was Reaped was because he criticised the Rebel Leader and didn't answer her telephone call, which was taken as a sign of disobedience and betrayal. **

** The reason Aden didn't get to say goodbye to his family after the Reaping was because they had been kidnapped and taken to the Capitol, where Colleen was separated from her children, while Logan and Hunter were spoiled rotten and kept ignorant of the plans against them.**

** Faer drowned Hunter while his father watched as a warning of her power and ruthless cruelty. She threatened to kill Logan too unless Aden does what she wants: to keep silent about the Rebellion and his part in it, on television and among the other tributes.**

** If Aden wins, he will be reunited with his family but forced to be a pawn of the Capitol until the day he dies. **


	17. Chapter 17

**Yes. I know. Updates have been shamefully irregular. Mea culpa. But you will be pleased to know that with the subplot of the last two chapters pretty much done, we are back to our bunch of protagonists and main plot! Yaay! And I think we have antagonists aplenty, so that's enough baddie introducing! Well, not including Gamemakers of course. But you expect them to show up in a SYOT, right? **

**And I think the Big Three as I like to call them (Silver Marble, Irma Faer and Rufilla... didn't bother to give her a surname) will be causing more than their fair share of skullduggery as the story continues as our (hopefully) scary fairies. er... yay? Oh and unfortunately that's probably the last we'll be seeing of the Leader of 13. Not that we saw much of him/her/it back in chapter 14 anyway.**

**This was quite a fun chapter to write. Technically religion in Panem doesn't really exist so does that make Satan an OC? or OOC? I'll ask a canon after church on Sunday. (They're used to my weird questions by now.)**

**Sorry about massive author note. Anyway, on with the story!**

District Nine

With the air of one breaking and entering (an air he was not actually entirely familiar with) Matthew eased the door to the dining car open and slipped inside, grateful that the door was about ten decibels less squeaky than those of his hometown. He would have preferred to have spent all of his time on the train (if not always in the Capitol) in his room, but immediate hunger was, as always, what halted his plans. So with more stealth than most jewel thieves he braved the corridors and cars in order to reach the lucrative pastry platter, mindful that any sign of Grocer Girl should result in his taking cover immediately.

Just as he turned to check if she was coming up behind him, a shoe zoomed through his field of vision and collided with the side of his head.

"Ow!" he exclaimed, more out of irritation than actual pain, for the airborne object turned out in fact to be a bedroom slipper and caused no more discomfort than a large bag of cotton wool.

Taking cover no longer a viable option, Matt turned and faced his assaulter head on.

For someone who had a high chance of being dead in a matter of weeks, she was remarkably calm. No, calm was the wrong word. She looked far too pissed off to ever appear calm, but she showed no signs of sadness, which took him aback. Heck, he knew girls at school who went to pieces when their pets were about to die, but here was Grocer Girl facing her own mortal prospects looking like she wanted nothing more than to pluck every hair from his head. He didn't voice these thoughts however, thinking it best not to supply her with ideas.

He looked her up and down and noticed her conspicuous lack of footwear as he took in her blotchily painted toenails that must have smudged as she followed him through the train up to the dining car.

"Didn't your weapon of mass destruction have a partner?"

"You moved. It missed and flew out of the window."

"Where's it now?"

"It's around. In a field. In District Ten."

The idea of a slipper being inspected by curious cows in a field made Matt laugh involuntarily and Lynna would have scowled at him, had she not been scowling at him already.

He could see her scanning the room for something else to throw and he quickly gathered his pastry supplies.

"Have-a-nice-day!" He gabbled, all one word.

"Don't you tell me what to do!" She exploded and grabbed him before he could make good his escape. Pulling him to the floor she pinned him down and with a cushion began hitting every part of his body that she could reach.

Really? He thought. This was how she was going to take her revenge? A pillow fight?

Frustrated by her victim's lack of- well, victim-ness, Lynna's temper boiled over resulting in a string of unusual insults that became increasingly more unusual.

"Thief!" she yelled. "Jerk! Pig! Idiot! Prat! Twit! Git! Moron! Big-head! Fool! Imbecile! Traitor! Nincompoop! Turncoat! Cur! Dunderhead! Luddite! Heathen! Mudblood! Orc-breath! Nazgul-feed! Bantha fodder! Klingon! Dalek! Hobbit vomit! Leprechaun poop! You are the spawn of the spawn of the spawn of the spawn of the spawn of the spawn of the spawn of the spawn of the spawn of the spawn of the spawn of the spawn of the spawn of the spawn of the spawn of the spawn of SATAN!"

"Woah woah wait a minute!" Matt sounded panic-stricken.

"What?" she snapped.

"You lost me. Somewhere around the eighth or twelfth generation of Satan's spawn."

Lynna leaned back, bewilderment briefly suffocating her anger. "Tough luck. I'm not recounting your geneaology for your convenience."

Matt was on the verge of a retort but she cut him off. "Don't say anything," she snapped. "I'd like this air to remain breathable."

Matt searched his brains for a way out of the room that required as little dialogue as possible between the two of them. He gave up. _Sod it _he thought angrily. She's already heartily ticked off. May as well live up to the Sower name- and temper and go all the way.

So, because he knew it would drive her absolutely berserk, he quickly leaned forward and kissed her full on the mouth.

He was right. Her eyes, previously narrowed in suspicion, were now wide with shock and furious. Her face flushed to the shade of an irate lobster and was a picture of wrath.

She moved back half a step and in her own mind, quickly decided how to respond. A slap to the face was traditional, if a little overused. No, that would be to back off. She would not back down from this fight. So bizarrely, rivalry took precedence over convention. She grabbed him by the shirt collar and, as if to somehow prove that anything he could do _she _could do better, kissed him back.

There was a click from behind them and a shuffle. Lynna jumped and hastily broke away, almost shrivelling up in embarassment at the sight of her mentor in the doorway, who was looking at the pair her mouth a small 'o' of understanding.

"I'll just give you two some privacy-" she said hurriedly as she hastened back out of the room.

"No! No! Absolutely not! This is _not _what it looks like!" Lynna stammered, her voice high-pitched in denial.

"Oh I think it's exactly what it looks like," Matt winked cheekily, feeling more cheerful than he had for what felt like days. "Girl can't keep her hands off me."

Then, sensing Lynna's stormy temper re-brewing, he raced for the door clutching his food and shut it just as a whole living room's worth of cushions collided where his head had been seconds before.

* * *

District Ten

Sabella smoothed out the soft quilt on her bed, rubbing it between her fingers. Everything about this place made her think of her mother, coming to the Games sixteen years before her. Had she been afraid, too? Of course she had. This was how she died.

Even though so many years had passed, Sabella looked for traces of her and came close to almost feeling them. Standing in doorways looking into rooms. The night she slept on the train she sniffed her pillow, hoping to pick up some hints of the smell that still emanated from her mother's old musty bottle of perfume at home, even though they had probably long since faded out from the fabric. Door handles and window sills, chairs and shelves.

Her District partner, Nicholas had not been quite so inquisitive but had preferred to sit quietly and read. He wasn't standoffish, he bowed to her the first time they had had a conversation and had seriously addressed her as "Miss Dyson" until she insisted otherwise. His topics for conversation were pretty limited, bound as he seemed to be by the guidelines of etiquette (therefore death and politics was off the menu) but he never even came close to offending her- or anyone. He opened the door for people- even Avoxes- so often that she was surprised that his arms didn't get tired. He never talked with his mouth full and even requested permission to leave the table at dinnertime- a request that was never denied. His conscientiousness made her think of Gavin and all of her friends back at home, so therefore when he had tentatively requested an alliance with her she had nodded.

For would-be allies they didn't talk much, although there seemed to be an unspoken agreement that in the Training Centre they would stick together- an agreement that suited Sabella very well. She barely knew Nicholas, but in the Training Centre she would be surrounded by strangers. At least she had some idea who he was. Watching the Reapings back on television, everyone began to look the same after a while and she had given up on learning all of their names. However she did distinctly remember that the boy from Six was called Caterpillar.

Or something like that.

"Sable?" Her mentor's gruff voice boomed through her bedroom's door. "Dining car in five. 'Bout time we talked strategy!"

Sabella groaned internally. She had been dreading this.

She generously allowed four minutes out of the five for herself and then hauled herself up and shuffled off to the dining room.

Her mentor was slurping black coffee noisily. Nicholas was sitting at the table calmly, little hands folded in his lap, discreetly ignoring the man's gulps and sighs. She sat down on the edge of a seat next to him and he smiled welcomingly at her, not acknowledging the rumbling burp that emanated from their mentor.

"Right kids," he set the coffee cup down on the saucer. "Time to make plans. Firstly-" he gestured to the two of them. "Be allies. Don't kill each other. Well, not that I think that either of you are capable of that. Secondly- how old are you two again?"

"Sixteen," Sabella mumbled to her lap.

"Fourteen," said Nicholas.

"Oh, that's not too bad. Last year's were twelve and thirteen. Bad busines, very bad business. Well, you look young for your ages, which is good. With any luck, you'll be overlooked long enough to see most of the competition gone. And then..." he shrugged.

"And then what?" Nicholas pressed him curiously, but not rudely.

"Fight to the death," he said simply. "Best pick up a few fighting tips in training if you can and with any luck, that might just be enough to send one of you back."

With any luck. Any luck was the same creature that could have brought her mother back, that had not worked. Would it work for her? She did not know. She wished that she wouldn't have to find out.

* * *

District Eleven

Coriander picked up a large, plump strawberry and slathered it in thick clotted cream. Pulling off the green stalk, she popped it in her mouth and relished it.

So far, so good. This volunteering idea had turned out rather well. Her death had been inevitable for what felt like too long now and living her last few days in luxury was a more comfortable prospect than lying in starched hospital sheets, breathing in the mingling smells of death and disinfectant, with chemicals burned into her system on a regular basis. The girl she had volunteered for- Saturnina Woldt, was it? Must be breathing a huge sigh of relief. Whenever her nerves twinged with apprehension or fear, she just conjured up in her mind Saturnina's face at the Reaping. Definitely worth it.

True, her motives for volunteering were mainly selfless, but a little part of Coriander was actually rather looking forward to being treated like a princess in the Capitol and the rich surroundings of the train was a promising taster. The food, the beauty- but more importantly the food, was a huge lifter in her spirits. The fame- brief in the Capitol, lasting at home, the oppurtunity to dress up in clothes better than she would have dreamed of, the chance to be interviewed on TV (five generous minutes of the whole nation listening to _her_!), all of it made her almost understand the Careers.

But then she thought of the Games and of killing people and her empathy with them vanished. All of the glamour would go of course, she would have to enter the arena- but there were painless ways to go and although she was not about to go jumping off her pedestal, Coriander considered her likely death. If the odds were truly in her favour, she'd be dead before she knew it.

"Want a strawberry?" smacking her lips together, she offered the bowl to Jathan, who was sitting on an armchair in the exact pose that Coriander had seen in a History textbook, on a statue of a Greek guy called the Thinker.

"I thank you." He took the bowl. "And may I, in return, offer you a succulent blueberry?" He passed to her a big bowl of them and she grinned.

"Thanks."

"Not at all. It is in the nature of an Invincible to repay acts of goodwill shown to them."

She gobbled several down and winked at him.

"Not nightlock then, eh?"

"Certainly not. If I was going to kill you, I would do so invincibly and I would inform you of your impending demise so that you too would be able to appreciate the invincibleness of it. I would not do something so underhanded and cowardly."

She shrugged. "Fair enough." This Jathan guy seemed to take his whole invincible thing very seriously. If he had been in her grade at school she would probably have sold her lunch to watch him in class arguing with a teacher. She imagined such a scenario and chuckled quietly. ("Jathan Lane, have you done your homework?" "Nome, I have not." "And why not?" "The homework was not invincible enough. The Invincibles must spend their time performing invincible deeds, answering questions on the reproductive systems of common tapeworms." "Well that's certainly a change from my-dog-ate-my-homework")

Jathan looked at her with an expression of proud interest.

"Does my invincibleness amuse you?"

"No, I was thinking about something else. I was just wondering, why do you keep calling yourself invincible?"

Jathan puffed out his chest and took a deep breath, extending his arms out as if to attempt flight.

"The Invincibles are, by their nature, invincible. Their mysteries can never be fully explained by those who are not invincible and the Invincibles' secrets are not to be divulged to mere mortals."

"Do I count as a mere mortal?"

"Have you ever done anything invincible?"

Coriander shrugged again, as if it was nothing. "I volunteered to save someone's life at the expense of my own, because I'm dying."

Jathan looked at her again with what looked like almost respect forming on his face.

"That's pretty invincible of you."

"Er... OK. If you say so."

"But invincibleness is not just a single act. It is a lifelong dedication to the art of Invincibility. Only a select few can achieve it."

"And what if you don't."

"There are other levels, of course. The lowest level of Invincibleness is Normal. Those slightly less normal than than the Normals are the Cools. Cooler than the cools are the Awesomes. Those awesomer than the Awesomes are the Epics. Those more epic than the Epics are the Legendaries. More legendary than the legendaries are the Invincibles."

"But where do bad people fit on this scale, then?" she asked him. Like_ the Capitol people and the Careers_, she thought to herself.

Jathan gestured with his hand, as if brushing them aside. "They do not count. They are negative on the scale of Invincibility."

"Then what makes people invincible, if bad people aren't invincible?"

"That is a mystery that mere mortals cannot fathom."

"But the Invincibles can?"

"If they chose to."

Coriander thought for a while and silence fell between the two. She wondered what Pippa would have to say on the subject.

"This is how I see it," she said finally. "You know how if you do bad stuff- what do they call it- random acts of violence and senseless acts of destruction? Something like that. Well, if you do that, you go to jail. I was thinking that if you do random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty you go- somewhere else. Somewhere that's the opposite of jail."

"That would be freedom," added Jathan.

"Yeah. Freedom."

"I am off for an invincible shower." he said finally, getting up and stretching. "Until we meet again, Almost-Invincible One."

"Have an invincible day," Coriander quipped, suppressing a smile.

"Fear not, good lady. I most certainly shall." He saluted her, then strode out into the corridor.

Once he was gone, Coriander allowed herself to smile at his eccentricities. They may not be allies, or ever become allies, but she felt she had little to fear from her cocky, ever buoyant district partner. She curled up on the sofa, wrapping her arms around her knees. Switching on the television, her contentment remained strong even though the programme was Games-centred. Jathan had cheered her up further and thoughts of kindness, beauty- and invincibleness, remained in her mind as the television ploughed on.

* * *

District Twelve

Anita fidgeted, her fingers drumming on the windowsill. She remembered how she used to pick at peeling plaster and paint at home and was told off for it. She almost lamented the lack of such a sight here, where all was fresh and new.

The sofa turned out to be very squashy, so she contented herself for an hour or two in running up behind it and, Olympian high jumper style, hurdling over it to land with a satisfying flop on the cushioned side. Just before it began to get tiring, she landed rather heavily and, the sofa having been designed in the Capitol for more conventional derrieres, it broke.

She regarded the scene of the crime with a detached look, covering the damage with a cushion. She opened the door and left the room. She bumped into Sadiki in the corridor, who had a worried look on his face.

"Thought I heard a bit of a bang," he said.

"A cat," she replied and Sadiki frowned in confusion. He looked past her into the room, surveyed the damage but seemed satisfied with her testimony. He turned back to leave.

"Don't go." said Anita, so quietly it was almost like she had said it to herself.

"Uh, OK then." Sadiki stayed where he was, awkwardly slap bang in the middle of the corridor. "I'm not going."

"I know," she replied.

"Do you... want to talk?"

"Talk?" She blinked. "I can talk."

"What do you like to talk about?"

"Stuff."

"What sort of stuff?"

"Stuff that you can... talk about?"

Anita was beginning to look like she was regretting asking him to stay. Eager not to allow the conversation to remain stagnant any longer, Sadiki broached a sensitive subject that he hoped might produce a reaction of some sort.

"Do you want to talk about the Games? I might be able to make you feel better," he suggested, his statement matter of fact and without hint of boasting.

"Maybe," was all she said and Sadiki wondered whether this was maybe she wanted to talk about the Games or maybe he would be able to make her feel better.

A vision suddenly unfolded in his anxious mind. Of him, dying alone in a hostile wasteland, surrounded by cameras but without a single human face in sight. Anita had come across as rather odd in the brief, somewhat stilted conversations they had had, but who was he to judge? For all he knew, she could have a good line in knock knock jokes.

And that was a chance he couldn't ignore.

"Might you consider an alliance? With me?"

"Maybe," she replied, again ambiguous on both counts. Certain that he wouldn't be able to coax further answer out of her, Sadiki leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. Sleep hadn't come too easily for him since he had been Reaped. There was a faint hope in his mind that with an alliance,sleep might come easier- several sleeping pills easier.

Anita didn't ponder his request but stared blankly out of the window.

The train passed under a dark tunnel and then Anita stepped back in surprise, her eyes widening to take in the sight.

Like a forest the city spread out, from the canopy of skyscrapers to the undergrowth of metro stations. Anita didn't know where to look, couldn't stay still long enough to catch a face or a signpost. Even from inside the train, which on the bridge was above the meandering city folk, it was all a staggering sight. The last thing Anita wanted, she decided, was to face all these strange people, with their hats, their colours and plumage, parasols- and claws, alone.

She scuttled back to the wall and leaned flat against it next to Sadiki, as if she had spotted a spider and was trying not to alert it to her presence.

"About that alliance..." she said hurriedly, her usual vague and quiet tone gone.

* * *

**So... all the alliances as they are so far: (since we haven't looked at them for...three chapters)**

**Shayen/Morgan**

**Charlotte/Damian**

**Alwilda/Capillo**

**Virginia/Savan**

**Jenny/Aden**

**Sabella/Nicholas**

**Anita/Sadiki**

**Lynna/Anybody-who-isn't-Matthew (jk)**


End file.
